Irish Jesuit Province

Cameo from VirgilAuthor(s): Patrick O'ConnellSource: The Irish Monthly, Vol. 71, No. 835 (Jan., 1943), pp. 14-16Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20515094 .

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14

Cameo from Virgil

By PATRICK O'CONNELL, S.J.

S Pliny so obviously remnarks, one cotuld live at the foot A of the Sugar Loaf, and never see any reason for its

name in Irish-or words to that effect. I nmean, that one often misses beauty at one's doorstep, becauise one never uses the front door. Am I obscure? A simpler proverb may clear uip my ideas. One often misses the wood for the trees

but reverse this. Our final formuila, therefore, becomes-tlhat if one cannot see beauty in some detail, the effect of the whole

is lost. Often, quite a sirmple accident, the glancing light of the sun on a may-fly's wings, or the fine green of a drake's head, allows us to enter into enjoyment of an early summer's day.

Now, keep this axiom, as it were, in mind, when I proceed to speak of Virgil. It explains my lack of appreciation of Virgil for many years. To be honest, I rather disliked Virgil, and

Aeneas and Anehises, and all those gibbering shadows of

hlomer's great Iliad, as I regarded themi. " Sum pius Aeneas ", annoyed me intensely. The thlought of old Anchises, perched on Aeneas' shoulders, with the Lares and Penates in tow

in the rear, was, to say the least, rather conical. The whole

epic seemed rather cheap and second-class, in my immatture judgment. Then, I did xvhat every sensible man does when he

wants to get a real knowledge of a poet: I began to read his works. And then I found Virgil-not as an epic poet, nor even

as the poet of Rome, but as the poet of all men, who was able

to stir me and rouse my emotions with a simple word. I will never forget that passage of the first book of the

Aeneid, beginning: "Lucus in uirbe fuit nmedia, letissimus

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CAMEO FROM VIRGIL 15

umbrxt. . . ." I had hardly begun it when I found my stupid prejudice fading away. " Sit still in the half-light, and dreanm of 'old, unhappy, far-off things '." The words became for nme what they should always be, synibols of thoughts, not merelv

beautiful in sound, but calling up great, fresh visions, stirring the deep places of a man's soul.

Constitit, et lacrimans, 'quis jam locus ',inquit, ' Achate,

qute regio in terris nostri non plena laboris? en Priamus ! sunt hic etiami sua prtrnmia lauidi; sunt lacrimt rerum, et mentem nmortalia tangunt. solve metus; feret hae aliquiam tibi fama salutem sic ait, atque animuin pictura pascit inani

multa gemens, largoque umeetat flumine voltum

Pause with me to watch Aeneas, als hie studics the carvings on Dido's temple. Here we have an antidote to that one-tinme

dismal confession, " sumi pius Aeneas"'. Th'lie thought's the thing ! One has tinme to think, as Aeneas poniders over the fall of Troy. Sorrow enters into our hearts also.

Parte alia fugiens arnissis Troilus armiis infelix puer atque inipar congressus Achilli:

fertur equiis curruque lhatret resupintus inani, lora tenens tamlen: huic cervixque coiiurque trahuntuir per terram, et versa publvis inscribituir hasta ".

It is strange. Like the women in hlonmer as they listen to

Briseis' lament: " Thus spake she weeping, and thereon the women wailed, in semblance for Patroclos, but eaclh for lher own woe -'we stand and think of ourselves.

It is one of those breathtaking nmomnents in poetry, when one

feels the world under its great circlet of stars and blue sky, wvhen one joins all men, toiling and sorrowing from the beginning.

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16 THE IRISH MONTHLY"

T"he failures of all time throng thickly around one: the sorrows of ruined cities, of captive princes, of sudden murder, of fearful

plague, of shanmeful surrender-all these unite, and become one. And in the mnidst of all these different thoughts, those visions of burming Troy, of Roncesvalles and the last, dying note of Roland's horn, of Saracen towering over fallen Cruisader on desert sands, of the plague-cart rtumbling past scaled doors through emnpty streets-in the nmidst of all that array of colour,

everything that is fine and noble, generouis or pitiful. Victorious or defeated, passes before our eves and is unified. It is as if the cathedral spires of Europe came together like a forest, and all their bells sounded but one note.

It is not often that we meet with poetry like this, and it has a great inspiration for us. Behind all these tlhoughts of sym pathy-in the Greek- sense-there are alw-ays thouglhts of the future and ourselves. WV'e feel the short space of tinme, the narrow gulf between us and eternity.

"Pallida mors tequo pulsat pede pauperuiin tabernas regumquie tturres. 0 beate Sesti, vitae suruma brevis spenm nos vetat inichoare loInganm; jani te premnit nox fabulhque MVlanes

et donoms exilis Plutonis '.

Anid the answer comes, like a reveille:

Et dubitaiulis adhue virtutem extendere factis, Aut metus Ausonia prohibet consistere terra?"

Saints-or heroes, if you like-wNhy not?

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