patria praecepta: lucretius and vergil in the underworld

Patria praecepta: Lucretius and Vergil in the UnderworldAuthor(s): John WardenSource: Vergilius (1959-), Vol. 46 (2000), pp. 83-92Published by: The Vergilian SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41587228 .

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Patria praecepta: Lucretius and Vergil in the Underworld

John Warden

The have past

study the come

hunting

of

to

imitation

look and

for gathering something

in Latin

stage. poetry

more At

than

has least

moved

the since

mere Knauer1 a

collection

long way we past the hunting and gathering stage. At least since Knauer1 we

have come to look for something more than the mere collection of parallel words and phrases: we have learnt that imitation worthy of the study can be expected in the first place to be sustained and systematic, and in the second to be "intentional," in the sense that it carries meaning;2 that is to say, the fact of imitation, and its manner, are ingredients in the meaning of the poem. In what follows I am claiming such a relationship, of systematic and meaningful imitation, between a section in Vergil, Aeneid 6 (719-853) and the conclusion of Lucretius, De Rerum Natura 3 (1024-94).

We have learnt too that imitation is not necessarily the sincerest form of flattery. Harold Bloom in his Anxiety of Influence lists a number of what he calls "revisionary ratios," ways, that is, in which poets "misread [...] one another, so as to clear imaginative space for themselves." One way is where "a poet antithetically 'completes' his precursors."3 Such, according to Philip Hardie,4 is Vergil's way

1 G. N. Knauer, Die Aeneis und Homer, Hypomnemata 7 (Göttingen 1964). 2 The other, more common, sense of "intentional" (that is to say, "done with intent") is also I believe applicable: See J. Farrell, Vergil's Georgics and the Traditions of Ancient Epic (New York 1991) 21-23, and J. Warden, " Ripae ulterior is: Structure and Desire in Aeneid Six," С J 95 (2000) 350 n. 7.

3 Harold Bloom. The Anxiety oflnñuence (New York 1973Ï 5 and 14 See especially Philip Hardie, Virgil 's Aeneid: Cosmos and Imperium (Oxford 1986) 235: "One of the tactics of this polemic was to adopt the terms of refer- ence of the opponent but to invert them so that the opposite message emerges." As Hardie points out, it is the technique that Epicurus - and Lu- cretius in his footsteps - uses on his adversaries. Vergil turns the tables, us- ing Lucretius' method against him. This characteristic was first noted (for the Georgics ) by W. Y. Sellar, Roman Poets of the Augustan Age: Virgil (Ox- ford 1897) 199 (further on the Georgics see Farrell (note 2 above) chapter 5, esp. 169 and 171-72). On the technique in general see B. Farrington, "Po- lemical Allusions to the De Rerum Natura of Lucretius in the Works of Ver- gil," in L. Varel and R. F. Willetts (eds.), Geras: Studies Presented to George Thomson (Prague 1963) 87-94.

Vergilius 46 (2000) 83-92



84 John Warden

with Lucretius: he engages in a dialogue with him, rather in the manner of a philosopher, starting from the position that his predecessor adopted, then expanding or inverting it to the point where it means something entirely different, indeed something that may be contra- dictory to the original.

This can take the form of a direct retort, a denial of the premise, where Lucretius' reductio ad absurdum is shown as not being so absurd after all. An example is contained in a recent article by Julia Dyson: at 5.1194-95 Lucretius expresses his scornful pity for mortals who ascribe passions to the gods: о genus infelix humanum, talia diuis / cum tribuit facta et iras adiunxit acerbas. For Lucretius such a view is obviously absurd, However it is asked as a serious question at the beginning of the Aeneid 1.111): tantaene animis caelestibus irae? Can the gods feels such passions? And the answer that is reached by the end of the epic is clearly "yes."5

The sixth book of the Aeneid contains many examples of the Vir- gilian riposte directed in particular at Lucretius' third book, the near- est thing in his epic to an underworld book.6 In fact Lucretius' main item of agenda in this book is to deny the existence of the underworld: nusquam apparent Acherusia templa, 25). The underworld is a figment created by man's ignorance. If one understands that the soul is mortal (and the bulk of the book is taken up with proving this), then one can be rid of the darkness that exists within man's heart (1.146 ff, 2.59 ff., etc.), the fears and desires which cause men's pain, and torture them as though they were in hell. (3.1018-

5 Julia Dyson, " Fluctus irarum, fluctus curarum: Lucretian Religio in the Aeneid," AJP 118 (1997) 449-57: "As Lucretius' 'no' offers the possibility of human happiness, so Virgil's 'yes' offers an explanation for human mis- ery" (456). Of course one may view this from another angle. For Lucretius at the end of the day there is nothing to live for: for Vergil there is something to be born for. Lucretius' moral philosophy is attended by social isolation and a political quietism. This Vergil specifically rejects in favour of a doctrine of social and political commitment. Compare Lucretius on the desire for political power (ut satius multo iam sit parere quietum / quam regere imperio res uelle et regna tenere, DRN 5.1129-30) with the famous lines that conclude Vergil's pageant of heroes in (tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento, Aen. 6.851). Dyson gives another example of Vergil's "subversion" of Lu- cretius' Epicureanism in "Dido the Epicurean," CA 15 (1996) 203-21. 6 Hardie (note 4 above) 183 n. 70 points out that "the 'descent' into Hades occurs at the end of the first halves of both poems."



Lucretius and Vergil in the Underworld 85

23). In Vergil's Acheron, on the other hand, all the things that Lu- cretius thought we should be rid of - the darkness, the dreams, the monsters - are present.7 And there is truth to be discovered in the darkness {di... I sit mihi fas audita loqui, sit numine uestro / pander e res alta terra et caligine mersas, 264-67).

8 What was "demytholo- gized" in Lucretius is "remythologized."9 The great sinners, "re- duced" to allegory in Lucretius, are played straight.10 While one

might debate how literally all this is to be understood, we should be cautious about explaining it away as a series of mental events.11 This is what Lucretius had done, and what Vergil is undoing. For Vergil, at the least, sunt aliquid manes.

Aeneas passes through that darkness to a world of light, sedes. ..beatas (639). It is a world modeled on the sedes... quietae of Lucretius 3.18 ff., the domain of the gods who live free from any toil or anxiety (cf. aether / integit et large diffuso lumine ridet, DRN 3.21-22 and largior his campos aether et lumine uestit, Aen. 6.640). The state of blessedness that is known only to the gods in Lucretius' philosophy is attainable by mortals; it is not located beyond the

7 A. K. Lake, "Lucretius and the Sixth Book of the Aeneid, " AJP 65 (1944) 135^8; on dreams; B. C. Vestraete, "The Implication of the Epicurean and Lucretian Theory of Dreams for falsa insomnia in Aeneid 6.896," CW 74 (1980-1981) 7-1 0; on monsters and other matters, Dyson (1997) 452; on the golden bough, C. Weber, "The Allegory of the Golden Bough," Vergilius 41 (1995) 3-34.

8 Compare in nigr as lethargi mergitur undas, DRN 3.829; rerum náturám pander e diet is, 5.54.

9 For the terms see Hardie (note 4 above) 178. 10 B. Catto, "Vergilian Inversion of Lucretius in Anchises' Exposition of the Soul," Vergilius 35 (1989) 68: "Virgil has completely disregarded Lucretus' allegorical interpretation of the physical punishments suffered by famous sinners in Tartarus."

11 See R. Jenkyns, Virgil's Experience (Oxford 1998) 448-50. For a different emphasis see, for instance, A. P. Thornton, The Living Universe: Gods and Men in Virgil's Aeneid (Dunedin 1976) 60-69; G. Williams, Technique and Ideas in the Aeneid (New Haven and London 1983) 49-58 (Vergil "disclaims a factual account of 'what really happened'" and the scene at the gates is "more suggestive of... an experience that is totally mental," 51; "the intellec- tual organisation suggests more the vivid incoherence of a dream," 53; etc.). Weber (note 7 above), 32-33, seeks a balance: "Lucretius' abstractions reac- quire concrete form. Considered from a different point of view, however, Vir- gil's underworld is seen to preserve Lucretius' allegory intact."



86 John Warden

walls of the world, but in the underworld. Aeneas watches the blessed sipping like bees from the flowers of the meadow (Aen. 6.707-9) as the followers of Epicurus sip like bees from his golden writings (DRN 3.11-13). Aeneas cannot understand why they should wish to leave this godlike existence to be born again (719-21). Father Anchises answers his puzzled question.

In what follows Anchises takes on the role of the philosopher teacher. In two lines his mode of expression shifts from the conver- sational to the didactic and philosophical.12 Aeneas is pupil, An- chises teacher. In accomplishing this shift, Vergil uses Lucretian phraseology (пес te suspensum tenebo, Aen. 6.723 ~ пес te...plura moremur, DRN 5.91; cf. 6.245); ordine singula pandit, Aen. 6.723 ~

rerum náturám expandere dictis, DRN 1.126; cf. 5.54). Anchises in effect is taking on the role of Epicurus. In Bonnie Catto's words, "Vergil has intentionally and paradoxically modeled his Anchises on the figure of Epicurus."13 Both are now philosophers, and both are fathers. "You are our father," says Lucretius at the beginning of book 3 (tu pater es... tu patria nobis / suppeditas praecepta, 9-10). Each offers his patria praecepta.

14

What is more, the content of Anchises' philosophical teaching is freighted with Lucretian language.15 The technical terminology of at- omism and the grand descriptions of the departments of the universe are not in any sense a parody and are fully respectful of the poetic tradition, but are used in the service of a metaphysics which Lu- cretius would have rejected.16 It is this philosophical content that has

12 O. Lucherini, "Echi Lucreziani nel discorso di Anchises," Athenaeum 67 (1989) 297-98: "con due versi lucreziani Virgilio facilmente passa dal tono di una semplice conversazione a quello di una discussione filosofica in cui Enea sosterrà il ruolo del discepolo ed Anchise quello del maestro." See R. G. Austin, P. Vergili Maronis Aeneidos Liber Sextus (Oxford 1977) 219 (ad 722).

13 Catto (note 10 above) 64. 14 At Aen. 5.724 ff. Anchises appeared to Aeneas in a dream with instructions to visit him in the underworld: Ditis tamen ante / infernas accede domos Au- er na per alta / congressus pete, nate, meos (731-33). Such are the cari praecepta parentis (747). 15 See especially the articles, cited above, by Lake (note 7), Catto (note 10) and Lucherini (note 12). 16 Austin (note 12 above) 221: "[T]he matter would have excited Lucretius'




tended to be the focus of any discussion of Lucretius' presence at the end of Aeneid 6. So striking is the passage, and so remarkable its use of Lucretian material for non-Lucretian ends, that there is a

temptation to isolate it from its context within the rest of the book. I believe that, if we look at the concluding sections of both books, DRN 3 and Aeneid 6, we will find a more systematic relationship between them than has hitherto been observed.

In Lucretius' argument there are three components: first, the homily (£>Ä/V 3.1024-52); second, the route to salvation (1053-75). and third, the question quae mala nos subigit uitai tanta cupido? (1077). In Vergil the order is reversed. The question comes first: quae lucis miseris tam dira cupido? (Aen. 6.721); next the route to salvation (724-51): and finally the homily (756-853). We shall ex- amine each component in the order of Vergil's arrangement:

1. The question. In Lucretius it is rhetorical, and the point is eristic. Given all that has been said, how can anyone possibly have this mala - crazy, illogical, cowardly17 - desire to go on living? No answer is expected. The question forecloses fuller argument. In Vergil there is a change of order and a change of speaker. The question is put not in the mouth of the one dispensing knowledge but of the one seeking it, and it is followed by an answer. Aeneas sees the blessed living in conditions that resemble the divine ataraxia of the Lucretian gods and asks, How could they have this insistent, urgent (dira™) desire to go back to the world with all its suffering? He does not understand (he is inscius, 711) and wants an answer, He is given one in what follows.19

2. The route to salvation. Both poets speak of a moles (cf. DRN 3.1056 - Aen. 6.727). For Lucretius this is a metaphorical weight of ignorance in the mind or heart {pondus inesse animo, 1054; moles in pectore , 1056); for Vergil it is cosmological, the great body of matter that constitutes the universe. For Lucretius it is present in the heart

disdain." 17 C. Bailey, Lucretius, De Rerum Natura (Oxford 1947) vol. 2, 1 174. 18 On dira see Warden (note 2 above) 355-56. 19 What is dismissed by Lucretius is entertained by Vergil as a serious ques-

tion. See Dyson (1997) (note 5 above) for a similar pattern.



88 John Warden

or mind, for Vergil the mind enters into it and stirs it up {mens agitai molem et magno se corpore miscet, 727), For both poets it brings heaviness or dullness {pondus, DRN 3.1054; onus 1059 « tardant, Aen. 6.731; hebetant, 732). For Lucretius the moles is the product of the fears and desires that come from man's ignorance; for Vergil it is what produces those fears and desires {hinc metuunt cupiuntque, do- lent gaudentque, 733) and is an unavoidable component of the physical makeup of the world. In both poems, man's problem is himself: for Lucretius, man cannot escape himself {hoc se quisque modo fugit, 1068), for Vergil, he brings with himself the crimes that he must expiate {quisque suos patimur manes, 743). For both it is a sickness to be cured {morbi quia causam non te tenet aeger, DRN 3 .1070 « noxia, Aen. 6.731, pestes, 737, infectum, 742). In Lucretius healing or purification20 is achieved logically and by human effort: the mind learns to understand the nature of things, naturam... cognoscere rerum (1072). In Vergil it is achieved mythologically and by divine intervention: the soul is cleansed with fire and water (739-42). Lucretian man is then ready to face eternity {temporis aeterni... ambigitur status, 1073); Vergilian man, having completed the cycle {longa dies perfecto temporis orbe, 745), is ready to be re- born. For Lucretius, salvation lies in accepting the death of the soul; for Vergil, in finally ridding the soul of all traces of the body.21

20 Lucretius uses the language of purification to describe enlightenment, e.g.: at nisi purgatumst pectus.../ quantae tum scindunt hominem cuppedinis acres / sollicitum curae quantique perinde timorés? 5.43-46; ueridicis igitur pur- gauit pectora dictis / et finem statuii cuppedinis atque tirnoris 6.24-25. The ideal is to live puro pectore, 5.18 (cf. purumque relinquit / aether ium sen- sum, Aen. 6.146-41). "[I]n Lucretius, man's blind ignorance and his fear that the soul is immortal hold him captive and debase his actions. Conversely, in Vergil the immortal soul is held in blind captivity and defiled by the body 's desires" (Catto [note 10 above] 67).

This paragraph requires a couple of riders. First, Vergil's moles is not wholly negative: it may be the source of our desires and woes, but it is also the stuff out of which the universe is made, and it is described with Lucretian splendour at Aen. 6.724-25. Second, though the process of purification in Vergil is described in mythological terms, it emerges from a philosophical, sc. Platonic, matrix.




3. The homily. Lucretius starts from a commonplace that has its origins in the Iliad (21.106-7): Better men than you have died. He looks at figures from the past to persuade the readers that they have no reason to complain about dying: tu uero dubitabis et indignabere obire? (1045). Vergil looks to the future and to the figures who will feature in Roman history to help Aeneas understand why they should desire to be born and to inspire him to contribute to that des- tiny: dubitamus adhuc uirtutem extendere factis? (806).

Lucretius' list climaxes with philosophers and poets (repertores doctrinarum et leporum ), Homer (who in a sense belongs to both these groups22), and then the heroes of Epicureanism: Democritus, who took his own life, and Epicurus,23 who outshines the stars (1036^4). In their place, Vergil sets Rome, the Romans, Caesar and Augustus, whose empire will extend beyond the stars (78 1-805).

24

In his build-up Vergil makes much use of Lucretian material. The comparison of Rome to Cybele (784-87) recalls the famous Magna Mater passage in DRN 2 (600^5). The differences are worth ob- serving. Lucretius is discussing the nature and diversity of the atoms that make up the universe. To illustrate the diversity he takes the example of earth (589 ff.) - mother earth, as they call her. Vergil's emphasis is on the richness and prodigality not of the earth as a whole but of the city of Rome, felix prole uirum (784) as Cybele is laeta deum partu (786).25 At lines 801-5, Augustus is compared in turn to Hercules ( non uero Alcides tantum te lluris obiuit) and to Bac-

22 It is he who explains "the nature of things" to Ennius (rerum naturam expandere dictis, DRN 1.126) For Ennius, one notes, he is ever-living (semper florentis , DRN 1.124), but for Lucretius he is dead (s opitu' quietest, DRN 3.1038) like all the rest.

23 The only time in the poem when his name is used (Bailey [note 4 above] ad loc.). 24 "The story-line of the Aeneid may also be read as a journey to the heavens or the stars" (Hardie fnote 4 above! 195).

25 Compare Hardie' s point in a different context: "the Lucretian image of the world as city is inverted in Virgil and preseented in the form of the city (Rome) as the world (urbs / orbis)" (note 4 above, 190). See R. Wilhelm, "Cybele: Great Mother of the Augustan Order," Vergilius 34 (1988) 77-101 esp. 92-93. Austin (note 12 above) 241 discusses the role of Cybele else- where in the Aeneid.



90 John Warden

chus {пес... Liber)' so too Epicurus at the beginning of DRN 5 is compared first to Ceres and Liber (14), then, at length, to Hercules (22-42). Again the differences are significant. Lucretius claims that Epicurus' achievement is superior by its very nature to the achievements of Bacchus and Hercules. The gift of wine, the slaying of monsters, are far less important than the teaching of Epicurus, he argues; for man can live without wine, {cum tamen, his posset sine rebus uita manere, 16), and monsters are no real danger (37-42); whereas only Epicurus can free man from what is the real danger, that is, the desires and fears in their hearts. Vergil too asserts Augus- tus' superiority to Bacchus and Hercules, but he does not dismiss the importance of their achievements; it is just that Augustus does the same thing better. The extent of his conquests are (or will be) greater than those of Bacchus and Hercules. Lucretius rejects arma for dicta (50); Vergil claims the superiority of Augustus' arma.26

Anchises of course is not yet done. After the peroration on Au- gustus he starts again, offering a second, more detailed historical survey, this time not only a triumphal chronicle, but a more complex account that takes note of the failure that accompanies success.27 But here too Lucretius has set the parameters. Before his description of the Epicurean "great men," he offered a brief, highly selective over- view of kings and potentates. First to be named is Ancus {lumina sis oculis etiam bonus Ancu' reliquit, 1025).28 And the list ends with Scipio, hero of the Carthaginian war. Even he, thunderbolt of war {belli fulmen ), terror of Carthage, must come to dust (1034-35). An- cus stands early in Vergil's historical survey (not bonus now, but iactantior, 815). And close to the end, we find the Scipios, described

26 Hardie (note 4 above) 213-15. 27 It is no "unalloyed panegyric": James E. G. Zeztel, "Rome and its Tradi- tions," in Charles Martindale (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Virgil (Cambridge 1997) 198; see D. C. Feeney, "History and Revelation in Ver- gil's Underworld," PCPS n.s. 32 (1986) 1-24; Hardie, Virgil, Greece & Rome New Surveys in the Classics (Oxford 1998) 96 and n. 178.

28 Lucretius is borrowing from Ennius, Ann. 3, fr. 137 (Sk.): postquam lumina sis oculis bonus Ancus reliquit, perhaps in part for the play on bonus / melior.




in language clearly based on, but outdoing, Lucretius: duo fulmina belli,29 1 cladem Libyae, 842-43).

30

Lucretius uses the example of the Carthaginian wars to show the irrelevance of history. He argues (DRN 3.832-42) that even though the whole world was in turmoil at that time and its survival in doubt, we, who had not yet been born, were not affected by it in any way (et uelut anteacto nil tempore sensimus aegri / ad confligendum uenientibus undique Poenis, 832-33). So shall it be when we are dead. The future will be like the past. In Vergil, these events fore- seen, the shattered world restored in a magnificent understatement (restituis rem, 846), have a direct impact on our lives and our behaviour. They tell us who we are and how we should act (hae tibi erunt artes, 852). Lucretius makes his point again: The future will reflect the past as in a mirror. As the past was nothing to us at the time it was happening, so when we are dead we will not be affected by what occurs:

respice item quam nil ad nos anteacta uetustas temporis aeterni fuerit, quam nascimur ante, hoc igitur speculum nobis natura futuri temporis exponit post mortem denique nostram.

DRN Ъ. 912-1 5

Vergil turns this on its head. The past has become Aeneas' future. As Anchises secures Aeneas' commitment to that future, he elicits from the reader a commitment to the past. As the past is relevant to us, so are we relevant to the future. Our lives and our achievements affect the lives of those unborn.

29 According to O. Skutsch, Studia Enniana (London 1968) 148, the description of the Scipios as fulmina originates with Ennius. If this is so, it is worth noting the contrasting ways in which the two poets use the allusion. Lu- cretius borrows it to underline the point that even the greatest do not escape death. Vergil, by setting it in a parade of heroes not yet born, subverts Lu- cretius' negative message and reinstates the validity of the historical epic. cladem Libyae blends mythology and history. In the destruction of Carthage the unfinished business of the epic is completed. One remembers An- chises' words to Aeneas when he first sees him in the Underworld: quam metui ne quid Libyae tibi regna nocerentl (694).



92 John Warden

Vergil's dialectic is thoroughgoing. He disputes Lucretius on every fundamental point: the structure of the universe, the nature of the gods, man's attitude to death, the values that should inform his behaviour, his relationship to the state. And in each case he uses Lu- cretius' own materials in constructing his argument. In his discussion of the nature of poetic influence, Harold Bloom uses the metaphor of father and son, "Laius and Oedipus at the crossroads."31 Vergil seeks to kill his poetic father, gently perhaps and with affection, but there can be no doubt about his intent.32

University of Toronto at Scarborough

31 Bloom (note 3 above) 11. I am grateful for good advice from reader and editor.



patria praecepta: lucretius and vergil in the underworld

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