Love letters from Ancient Greece

Oftentimes success is linked to mere unexpected factors, sometimes these happen to be quite trivial circumstances far away from your remotest aims and plans. This is most certainly the case of “Love Letters of Great Men and Women: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present Day”, a volume edited by C. H. Charles Ph. D. and published in London in 1924, which features love epistles by Madame Recamier, Amandine Aurore Lucile Dupin (a.k.a. George Sand), Marie Bashkirtseff, Benjamin Constant, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Alfred de Musset, William Congreve, Horace Walpole, Multatuli, Lord Nelson’s Lady Hamilton, dandy Beau Brummell, Guy de Maupassant, Stendhal, Camille Desmoulins, Madame de Stael, Esther Vanhomrigh, Duke of Choiseul. This rather vast and various harvest has been just recently exhumed and presented to the attention of the greater – and rather consumerism-oriented – public who is literally devouring this new paperback edition. I leave to my readers’ personal judgment as whether it really matters or not that it was “Carrie Bradshaw” (and her “Mr. Big”) to arouse this unforeseen interest: I do favour any endeavour, whichever is its source, intended to awake attention towards good writings.

On the other hand I presume that what the greater public is most likely not entirely aware of is that the writing and publication for entertainment purposes of real/fictitious letters of famed characters was already highly popular – almost a fashionable genre – in I and II century A.D.; and consequently involving brilliant authors like Lucian (Lucianus) of Samosata (Λουκιανός ο Σαμοσατεύς) a renowned orator, one of the earliest novelist ever and a true master in fictional narrative, Aristaenetus a very famous epistolographer and Alciphron (Αλκίφρων), a sophist and unparalleled fiction letter writer. Of this latter in particular we have circa 120 letters clustered by senders/addressees and namely gathering imaginary correspondence between fishermen, peasants, courtesans and parasites. All the letters have the IV century b.C. Athens (and its outskirts and countryside) as scenario, are written in pure Attic dialect, and portray various situations with sometimes ironic, mocking or funny tones, as well as a few times also shade some sorrowful, moving and passionate tenor – often the fiction involves real characters of that age.

When it comes to the theme of love, Alciphron presents us with marvellous examples of Attic prose and expression of feelings, which nowadays we may without much hesitation call romantic, in particular the fictitious correspondence between Menander (Μένανδρος), the most famous playwright of 4th century B.C. (originator of the New Comedy) and his lover Glycera. The preamble is that Menander was invited by Ptolemy Soter (or Lagus) King of Egypt, founder of the library and school of Alexandria – together with his rival play writer Philemon – where endless success and great riches were promised to both of them, but:

MENANDER to GLYCERA:

“By the Eleusinian goddesses and their mysteries, by which I have often sworn with you only, dear Glycera, I swear that, in making this avowal in writing, I have neither desire to praise myself nor to divide from you.

What happiness could I benefit from staying apart from you? In what could I take more contentment than in your love? Thanks to your tenderness and good character, even true old age shall seem youth to me. Let us be both young and then old together, and, by the gods, when time comes let us be together in death, without even realising that we are leaving this world; may jealousy never be buried with either of us into the grave, may never one survivor enjoy any other’s love. May it never be my misfortune to see you die before me; for then, what delight would be left for me?

I am presently staying in Piraeus due to my ill-health… and the reasons which have persuaded me to write to you, while you are staying in the city for the sacred festival of Demeter, the Haloa, are the following: I have received a letter from Ptolemy, King of Egypt, in which he beseeches me, promising me right regally all the good things of the world, and invites me to visit him, together with Philemon, to whom also, they say, a letter has been sent. In fact, Philemon has sent it on to me: it is to the same effect as mine, but not so ceremonious or splendid in the promises it holds out, since it is not written to Menander. Let him think about and contemplate what he wishes to do; but I will not wait for his opinion, for you, my Glycera, are my guidance, my Areopagus, my Heliaea, by Athena, you have ever been, and shall ever be my all.

So I am sending you the King’s letter; but, in order to prevent you from going through the reading of both my letter and his, I wish you also to know what reply I have determined to formulate to it. By the twelve great gods, I could not even consider sailing to Egypt, a realm so far remote from us; but, not even if Egypt was as close as Aegina. I could not even then dream of leaving my kingdom of your love, and the wandering alone in the middle of the busy inhabitants of Egypt, in a crowded desert, as it would seem to me without my Glycera. I prefer your hugs, which are sweeter and less dangerous than the special treatment of all the kings and satraps. Loss of freedom is loss of safety; flattery is shameful: the favours of Fortune are not to be trusted.

I swear it by Dionysus and his ivy-wreaths, with which I would rather be crowned, in the presence of my Glycera seated in the theatre, than with all the diadems of Ptolemy.

Shall I leave Glycera and move to Egypt? And to what purpose? To obtain gold and silver and other riches? And with whom am I to share my pleasure in it? With Glycera away from me separated by such a wide and dangerous sea? Won’t all this be plain poverty to me without her? And should I hear that she has entrusted her love to someone else, will not all these possessions be to me no more than dust and ashes? And, when I die, shall I not carry away with me my grief to the grave, and leave all my treasures a prey to those who are ever waiting to grab hold of them?

Is it so great an honour to live with Ptolemy and his satraps and others with like idle names, whose familiarity is not to be trusted, and whose enmity is perilous? If Glycera is irritated with me, I embrace her in my arms and snatch a kiss; if she is still angry, I press her further, and, if she is still resentful or rancorous, I shed tears; then she can no longer resist my grief, but beseeches me in her turn; because she has neither soldiers, nor lancer, nor guards, but I am all in all to her.

So let Philemon go to Egypt and have the benefit of the joy that is promised to me, because Philemon has no Glycera; perhaps he is not even worthy of such a blessing. And do you, my dear Glycera, I implore you, without delay after the Haloan celebrations, get on your mule and run to me, because I have never known a festival that seemed to last longer, or one more inopportune. Demeter: I beseech your favours!”

Thus starting from the real plead of the Egyptian King and Mecenate Ptolemy, confirmed by (Caius Plinius Secundus) Pliny the Elder, who reported it in his Naturalis Historia:

“magnum et Menandro in comico socco testimonium regum Aegypti et Macedoniae contigit classe et per legatos petito, maius ex ipso, regiae fortunae praelata litterarum conscientia”.

[A strong testimony, too, was given to the merit of Menander, the famous comic poet, by the kings of Egypt and Macedonia, in sending to him a fleet and an embassy; though, what was still more honourable to him, he preferred enjoying the converse of his literary pursuits to the favour of kings].

and just like any modern fiction writer – by the way it is worth to reveal that Pliny does not mention anything about the invitation to Egypt extended also to Philemon, which is probably a fiction escamotage smartly used by the author to have him as an anti-hero… – Alciphron imagines and composes this correspondence between the two lovers that, apparently, no distance, prospect success or promised riches can tear apart because they decide together about their nest and consequent future.

Such an interesting key to read the correlation between love and distances as well as the changing of perspectives under different moods, very much resembling the love letters exchanged between Lord Byron and Teresa Guiccioli, namely soon after they fell in love:

“This Venice, without flowers, without trees, without perfumes, without birds, that I never liked before, with her depressing gondolas instead of my horse-carriage now seems to me the dwelling of life and lights, like heaven on earth”. Teresa

and before him departing for Greece:

“In that word, marvellous in every language, but above them all in yours – Amor mio – there lies my entire existence, now and from now onward. I feel I exist here and I am afraid here I shall exist in the future – to which purpose you will decide: my destiny depends upon you… think about me sometimes when the mountains and the Ocean will try to separate us, but I know they will never succeed, unless you want them to.” Byron

Catullus: kiss and poetry

Romanticism and passion, intensity and love are definitely Catullus main characteristics – albeit additionally, of course it cannot be denied he oftentimes used vulgar expressions, straightforward sexual references and offensive tones. Son of a well off Northern Italian family, Catullus not seldom loved playing the role of the disgraced artist, fancying the wearing of bohémienne clothes and striving to pretend being the forerunner of a poète maudit. He firmly despised any social, civil or political involvement and even scorned Julius Caesar (who by the way was also a family friend…).

His heart and his love were only for poetry and devoted to Lesbia (conventionally identified with the deceitful Clodia, prosecuted by Cicero in Pro Caelio, though this is still to be ascertained) a woman who apparently captured his soul first and afterwards, with her unreliable frame of mind and false behaviour, broke his heart. His verses range therefore from the chanting of the utmost blissful moments of his love-life and devotion:

Nulla potest muli tantum se dicere amatam
uere, quantum a me Lesbia amata mea es.
nulla fides ullo fuit umquam in foedere tanta,
quanta in amore tuo ex parte reperta mea est.

[Never a woman could call herself so fondly beloved
Truly as Lesbia mine has been beloved of myself.
Never were Truth and Faith so firm in any one compact
As on the part of me kept I my love to thyself.]

to the mourning in the deepest despair derived from the abandonment:

Wretched Catullus, stop making a fool of yourself.
And consider lost that which you see has come to an end.
The bright suns once shone for you,
When you were often coming where the girl was leading—
No girl will be loved as much as she had been loved by us.
When those playful things were happening there,
Which you were willing to do and the girl was not unwilling,
Truly the bright suns shone for you.
Now at last that girl is not willing; you also, though lacking self-control, be unwilling,
And do not pursue she who flees nor live as a lovesick man,
But endure with a determined mind; be resolute.
Goodbye, girl. Already Catullus is hardened,
And neither looks nor will ask for you unwilling girl.
But you yourself will be sorry when you are never asked for again.
Wicked one, woe to you! What life awaits you?
Who will come to you now? To whom will you seem cute?
Whom will you love now? Whose will you be said to be?
Whom will you kiss? Whose lips will you nibble?
But you, Catullus, remain hardened.

from the sweetest and cheerful remembrances of his unforgettable love moments:

Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus,
rumoresque senum seueriorum
omnes unius aestimemus assis.
soles occidere et redire possunt:
nobis cum semel occidit breuis lux,
nox est perpetua una dormienda.

[Let us live, Lesbia, and let us love,
And let's not give a dime to every
mean whisper of the puritanical old men.
The day's light comes and sets, and then returns again,
But for us the brief light shines but once,
And night stretches forth in one long sleep.]

to the most furious rage originated by jealousy, deceit and dejection. Consequently his production – the celebrated Liber – can altogether be considered as the Spiegel of his soul, as his personal Journal de bord, through which we can identify, analyse, share and enjoy all the different – and yet so common – stages of love, absolutely unchanged in over 2000 years. Catullus was particularly fond of the kiss, I guess he considered – and I do totally agree with him – the kissing as the highest expression of fondness between two lovers. I actually deem that under different circumstances, moments, locations, situations a kiss can be passionate, but also can be delicate, it can be comforting and soothing, but can also be warm and ardent:

da mi basia mille, deinde centum,
dein mille altera, dein secunda centum,
deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum;
dein, cum milia multa fecerimus,
conturbabimus illa, ne sciamus,
aut ne quis malus inuidere possit,
cum tantum sciat esse basiorum.

[Give me a thousand kisses, the a hundred more,
Another thousand, a second hundred or two,
A thousand and still a hundred hundred more.
Then when we have kissed a thousand thousand times
Let the countless number fly away before we pause
Counting, nor let some envious eye devise a plot
Knowing that so many kisses can be kissed]

And again, more passionately:

Quaeris, quot mihi basiationes
tuae, Lesbia, sint satis superque?
quam magnus numerus Libyssae harenae
lasarpiciferis iacet Cyrenis,
oraclum Iouis inter aestuosi
et Batti ueteris sacrum sepulcrum;
aut quam sidera multa, cum tacet nox
furtiuos hominum uident amores;
tam te basia multa basiare
uesano satis et super Catullo est,
quae nec pernumerare curiosi
possint nec mala fascinare lingua.

[You ask how many of your kisses do I need,
Lesbia, how many kisses will suffice.
As many as the grains of Libyans sands
That lie upon the perfumed Cyrenian plain
Between the sweltering shrine of fiery Jove
And the sacred sepulchers of ancient kings.
Or as many as the countless stars in quiet night
That stare down on the furtive loves of men.
Only such a number of your kisses, only this
Will be enough and above for your crazy lover,
Which neither curious eyes can number up
Nor evil tongues enchant to bind our play.]

And furthermore with tinges of modern romanticism:

Kiss me softly and speak to me low;
Trust me darling, the time is near,
When we may live with never a fear
Kiss me dear!
Kiss me softly, and speak to me low

No doubt then that Catullus is the precursor of the “poetry of the kiss”. He seems to open a ventana on Percy Bysshe Shelley’s sweetest and tender, alabaster skin maiden:

I fear thy kisses, gentle maiden;
You needest not fear mine;
My spirit is too deeply laden
Ever to burthen thine

I fear thy mien, thy tones, thy motion;
Thou needest not fear mine;
Innocent is the heart’s devotion
With which I worship thine.

and paving a footpath to Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s passion and ardour:

For lo! even now my lady’s lips did play
With these my lips such consonant interlude
As laurelled Orpheus longed for when he wooed
The half-drawn hungering face with that last lay.
I was a child beneath her touch,–a man
When breast to breast we clung, even I and she,–
A spirit when her spirit looked through me,–
A god when all our life-breath met to fan
Our life-blood, till love’s emulous ardours ran,
Fire within fire, desire in deity.

Catullus can be thus considered the most romantic of the classic poets, as I personally adore this masterful portrait of a couple Septimius and Acme caught in their secluded private own world, a wonderful scene of intimacy and sweet words of love that only two lovers can conceive and share while hiding in their timeless nest neglecting time, space and the outer rest:

Septimius holding his love Acme
on his lap said “My Acme,
if I do not love you desperately and am ready to love you further
continuously for all my years,
as much as one who loves most desperately,
alone in Libya and scorched India
let me come face to face with the green-eyed lion.”
As he said this, Love on the left as before
on the right sneezed approval.
Then Acme, gently bending back her head,
and kissing the intoxicated little eyes of her sweet boy
with that rosy mouth
said “Thus, my life, my little Septimius,
let us be slaves to this one master,
as a much more eager fire burns
in my soft marrow.”
As she said this, Love on the let as before
on the right sneezed approval.
Now, having set out from favorable omens
with mutual passions they love and are loved.
Little love-sick Septimius prefers Acme alone
to Syrias and Britains:

faithful Acme makes her delights and pleasures in
Septimius alone.
Who has seen any people more blessed?
Who has seen a more favoured love?

Living upon art, living upon love

Only Lesbos, a dream-like island in the Aegean Sea, endowed with its heights of Leucas, overlooking its splendid Gulf of Kallonis, with its little rivers Kalami and Krioneri, the torrent Xalantra and its large Milopotamos, with enchanting places like Methymna, Thermi, Antissa and the celebrated Mytilene, could give birth in the village of Eresos to the most romantic poetess of all the times; there was born Sappho in early 600 B.C., on this island famous for the beauty of its women, perhaps the prettiest of the whole Ancient Greeek world.

She was naturally endowed with a particular ability of seeing what many others could not see, she was extremely acute in noticing details and nuances that everyone would have instead overlooked, she was extraordinary gifted in reading situations and people and to transform feelings and emotions into verses, actually often even in a few impressive lines, like very few other artists I can think of, or perhaps just one…

Everything in Sappho’s poetry is most definitely personal, deep, and insightful. Every single word is carefully chosen and weighted in order to convey a clear reflection of her inner soul immersed into an aura of refined art and polished beauty. Altogether a gift for which she herself thanked the Muses:

Theirs is all the merit, if clever
I can claim myself in something,
because their own art they gave me as a gift

Sappho was definitely the expression of the ancient Greek temperament and pragmatism, though influenced by Ionian tones and oriental sensibility:

To die is awful: this is
what the Gods actually think.
Or else they would be mortal too.

I love the way she stated quite firmly and clearly her life’s priorities:

Some say the fairest thing on the black earth

is a host of horsemen,
Some say a host of infantry,
others say a fleet of ships
but for me
It is my beloved one.

And additionally:

Beauty I have served,
could there had been
anything else
greater than that?

Thus undoubtedly her supreme goals in life were love and art. Love with its lust, illusions, bliss and disappointments to be combined with her art in pursuing beauty; and this continuous osmotic process became Sappho’s raison d’etre. Living is feeling and feeling is living. Art and love: a continuous transfusion of her life into her verses and a magic blend of lines and rhymes into her life:

She honoured you like a goddess
And delighted in your choral dance.
Now she is pre-eminent among the ladies of Lydia
As the rose-rayed moon after the sinking of the Sun
Surpasses all the stars and spreads it’s light upon the sea
And the flowers of the fields
To beautify the spreading dew, freshen roses
Soft chervil and the flowering maillots …..

Restless, she remembers gentle Atthis -
Perhaps her subtle judgement is burdened
By your fate …..

And more straightforward and effectively:

Love shook my heart
Like the mountain wind
Falls upon trees of oak ….

Or like in this wonderful statement of devotion; this declaration of love, that certainly needs no comment at all:

Awed by her brightness
Stars near the beautiful moon
Cover their own shining faces
When she lights earth
With her silver brilliance
Of love ….

Furthermore Sappho wrote about love not simply and solely by portraying the idyllic moments of contemplation and rhyming, but also the most ardent and passionate feelings and instincts that only desire can originate:

Once again, desire -
That looser of limbs and bitterly sweet -
Makes me to tremble
You are irresistible ….

And again:

I wish this night would never end
I wish this could become two nights in a row

Only another character outstands for her plainly affirmed choice, and for her firm devotion to love and art: the singer Floria Tosca – protagonist of the celebrated Puccini’s Opera. How desperately, and yet delicately, she sings when, in one of the most touching arias ever, she complains about her sad, terrible destiny after an entire life she had dedicated only to art and love. Nothing else vile and earthy had ever appealed her at all, and this notwithstanding her fate has not been just with her – but alas! We all know that unluckily life is not supposed to be necessarily fair:

Vissi d’arte, vissi d’amore,
Non feci mai male ad anima viva!
Con man furtiva
Quante miserie conobbi, aiutai.
Sempre con fe’ sincera
La mia preghiera
Ai santi Tabernacoli salì,
Sempre con fe’ sincera
Diedi fiori agli altar.
Nell’ora del dolore perché Signore,
Perché me ne remuneri così?
Diedi gioielli
Della Madonna al manto,
E diedi il canto agli astri, al ciel,
Che ne ridean più belli.
Nell’ora del dolor
Perché Signore,
Perché me ne remuneri così?

Even when Sappho got older (in those days a woman in her fifties was already aged) she never regretted or felt any remorse for a life devoted to art and love, if not lamenting the forces that were inevitably abandoning her:

Age seizes my skin and turns my hair
From black to white:
My knees no longer bear me
And I am unable to dance again
Like a fawn.
What could I do? I am not ageless:
My youth is gone.
Red-robed Dawn, immortal goddess,
Carried Tithanus to earth’s end
Yet age seized him
Despite the gift from his immortal lover ….
I love delicate softness:
For me, love has brought the brightness
And the beauty of the sun ….

Finally, I love to believe that Sappho from the heights of her poetry and with the wisdom of all her experience wishes us all what she considers the most important accomplishment on earth:

May you sleep safe on the chest
of your tender life-companion…

Emotions and feelings in Virgil

Virgil, a rather complex personality, described by both his contemporaries and scholars as a quiet, silent and absorbed soul, not interested in any present glory or actual success. His poetry is absolutely uplifting as he could transform into beautiful verses anything he could rhyme about and enrich his poems with incredibly deep and detailed analysis of psychological aspects of both characters and situations. He could thus achieve the minutia of each portrayal of events and personages with such an elegance and style very difficult to find in Latin literature and perhaps even in modern times.

None of his characters is definitely positive or negative: he was able to depict the inner side of each of them and could find and describe even contradictory aspects of a personality, which is what normally constitutes and characterises the multi-facets nature of human beings. Like king Mezentius, a rather shady character of Aeneid, who shows feelings like paternal love and sympathy and remorse when he finds out that his son Lausus has been slain by Aeneas, and also already foresees his own end:

At Lausum socii exanimem super arma ferebant
flentes, ingentem atque ingenti volnere victum.
Agnovit longe gemitum praesaga mali mens:
canitiem multo deformat pulvere et ambas
ad caelum tendit palmas et corpore inhaeret.
`Tantane me tenuit vivendi, nate, voluptas,
ut pro me hostili paterer succedere dextrae,
quem genui? Tuane haec genitor per volnera servor,
morte tua vivens? Heu, nunc misero mihi demum
exitium infelix, nunc alte volnus adactum!
Idem ego, nate, tuum maculavi crimine nomen,
pulsus ob invidiam solio sceptrisque paternis.
Debueram patriae poenas odiisque meorum:
omnis per mortis animam sontem ipse dedissem!
Nunc vivo neque adhuc homines lucemque relinquo.
Sed linquam.’

O’er his broad shield still gush’d the yawning wound,
And drew a bloody trail along the ground.
Far off he heard their cries, far off divin’d
The dire event, with a foreboding mind.
With dust he sprinkled first his hoary head;
Then both his lifted hands to heav’n he spread;
Last, the dear corpse embracing, thus he said:
“What joys, alas! could this frail being give,
That I have been so covetous to live?
To see my son, and such a son, resign
His life, a ransom for preserving mine!
And am I then preserv’d, and art thou lost?
How much too dear has that redemption cost!
‘T is now my bitter banishment I feel:
This is a wound too deep for time to heal.
My guilt thy growing virtues did defame;
My blackness blotted thy unblemish’d name.
Chas’d from a throne, abandon’d, and exil’d
For foul misdeeds, were punishments too mild:
I ow’d my people these, and, from their hate,
With less resentment could have borne my fate.
And yet I live, and yet sustain the sight
Of hated men, and of more hated light:
But will not long.

The king’s spirit is now abated by the pain of his wounds and the grief of his recent loss as he speaks tender words of wisdom even to Rhaebus, his horse, before charging his final assault:

Simul hoc dicens attollit in aegrum
se femur et, quamvis dolor alto volnere tardet,
haud deiectus equum duci iubet. Hoc decus illi,
hoc solamen erat; bellis hoc victor abibat
omnibus. Adloquitur maerentem et talibus infit:
`Rhaebe, diu, res siqua diu mortalibus ulla est,
viximus. Aut hodie victor spolia illa cruenti
et caput Aeneae referes Lausique dolorum
ultor eris mecum aut, aperit si nulla viam vis,
occumbes pariter; neque enim, fortissime, credo,
iussa aliena pati et dominos dignabere Teucros.’
Dixit et exceptus tergo consueta locavit
membra manusque ambas iaculis oneravit acutis,
aere caput fulgens cristaque hirsutus equina.
Sic cursum in medios rapidus dedit: aestuat ingens
uno in corde pudor mixtoque insania luctu,
et furiis agitatus amor et conscia virtus.

With that he rais’d from ground
His fainting limbs, that stagger’d with his wound;
Yet, with a mind resolv’d, and unappall’d
With pains or perils, for his courser call’d
Well-mouth’d, well-manag’d, whom himself did dress
With daily care, and mounted with success;
His aid in arms, his ornament in peace.
Soothing his courage with a gentle stroke,
The steed seem’d sensible, while thus he spoke:
“O Rhoebus, we have liv’d too long for me-
If life and long were terms that could agree!
This day thou either shalt bring back the head
And bloody trophies of the Trojan dead;
This day thou either shalt revenge my woe,
For murther’d Lausus, on his cruel foe;
Or, if inexorable fate deny
Our conquest, with thy conquer’d master die:
For, after such a lord, rest secure,
Thou wilt no foreign reins, or Trojan load endure.”
He said; and straight th’ officious courser kneels,
To take his wonted weight. His hands he fills
With pointed jav’lins; on his head he lac’d
His glitt’ring helm, which terribly was grac’d
With waving horsehair, nodding from afar;
Then spurr’d his thund’ring steed amidst the war.

Virgil is mainly known for his epic poem Aeneid that emulates both Iliad and Odyssey: Aeneas running away from Troy travels as Odysseus looking for a new place to settle down and to found a new country (Rome) by defeating the Latin indigenous leaded by Turnus King of the Rutuli – a typical Homeric Iliad character. Therefore by chanting the Roman origins and representing the highest example of Latin Epos the poem gained him fame and a tranquil life during Augustus Empire within Mecenate intellectual and literary circle. Naturally somehow he had to recognise this “gift” by using – fortunately with some discretion – also apologetic themes and encomiastic tones towards the Empire within his opus that soon was considered and became a regime poem. As when Aeneas meets his father in the otherworld and the old king explains to him his extraordinary mission: to found Rome which will be renowned for its warfare ability and its political expansion, leaving to the old Greek civilisation the heights of fine arts and sciences:

excudent alii spirantia mollius aera
credo equidem, uiuos ducent de marmore uultus,
orabunt causas melius, caelique meatus
describent radio et surgentia sidera dicent:
tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento
hae tibi erunt artes, pacisque imponere morem,
parcere subiectis et debellare superbos.

Let others better mold the running mass
Of metals, and inform the breathing brass,
And soften into flesh a marble face;
Plead better at the bar; describe the skies,
And when the stars descend, and when they rise.
But, Rome, ‘t is thine alone, with awful sway,
To rule mankind, and make the world obey,
Disposing peace and war by thy own majestic way;
To tame the proud, the fetter’d slave to free:
These are imperial arts, and worthy thee.

However, within and beside his epic production, there are personages and lines that I personally find particularly meaningful and rich of insightful messages like the words pronounced by Dido, the Queen of Carthage, showing her sublime sweetness and kind-heart for Aeneas and his people – in just one line:

Non ignara mali, miseris succurrere disco.

[I’m not unwonted to bad times and occurrences, thus I’ve learnt to aid those in distress.]

I truly think that Virgil was able to find as Hugo von Hofmannstal’s Lord Philipp Chandos was as well trying to:

“…unter all den ärmlichen und plumpen Gegeständen einer bäurishen Lebensweise nach jenem einem sucht, dessen unscheibare Form, dessen von niemand beachtetes Daliegen oder –lehnen, dessen stumme Wesenheit zur Quelle jenes rätselhaften, wortlosen, schrankenlosen Entzückens warden kann”.

[…among all those poor and clumsy objects of country life, only the one that with his non evident shape, whose unwilling tossing or placing, whose mute essence is able to spring that mysterious, silent, boundless exaltation]

As I think few others can be more suggestive and romantic than these lines from Virgil’s first ecloga, which sound so modern, so Lakist or Leopardian:

Hic tamen hanc mecum poteras requiescere noctem
fronde super viridi. sunt nobis mitia poma,
castaneae molles et pressi copia lactis,
et iam summa procul villarum culmina fumant
maioresque cadunt altis de montibus umbrae.

[Please stay and rest with me tonight
on the green leaves, I’ve got ripe apples
sweet chestnuts and plenty of cheese,
See already in the distance the smoky cottages’ chimneys,
and taller the shadows are coming down from the mounts.]

I am today more than ever certain that it takes very little to a true poet to create an atmosphere. Maybe a true artist’s secret is, as Hugo von Hofmannstal brilliantly pointed out:

“Oder als könnten wir in ein neues, ahnungsvolles Verhältnis zum ganzen Dasein treten, wenn wir anfingen, mit dem Herzen zu denken”

[We could get into a new, meaningful relationship with the entire universe if we started thinking with our heart]