Introduction to classical Latin literature (1904) (14760812206)

Identifier: introductiontocl00lawt (find matches)
Title: Introduction to classical Latin literature
Year: 1904 (1900s)
Authors: Lawton, William Cranston, 1853-1941
Subjects: Latin literature -- History and criticism
Publisher: New York : C. Scribner's sons
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN



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ir unceasing dance, like motesin the sunbeam, though the mass which they compose seemsitself at rest. Emersons Each and All may well havegained some touches from this picture. BookII., vss. For often woolly flocks upon a hill3«7-32. Seize on their welcome food whereer the grass Gemmed with fresh dew invites and summons each ;The lambs, well-sated, play and butt in sport;Yet all commingled, seen by us afar.Seem one white spot upon a verdant slope. Or when again the mighty legions fillWith movement all the regions of the plain,Waging a mimicry of war, to heavenThe glitter rises, and the whole earth roundGleams with the bronze, while tramping feet beneathMake uproar, yea the shoutings of the hostSmiting the mountains echo to the stars ;The horsemen wheeling dash across the fields,Shaking them with the fury of the charge ;—And yet upon the heights tiiere is a spotWlienee all doth seem one glimmer, motionlessThat lies upon the plain. Of course there is much in this unique volume that is
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H -5- o LUCRETIUS 133 not poetry. At times indeed, waging keen polemic againstsome Greek heresy in physics, the philosopher complainsover the added difficulty self-imposed by the metrical form,or over the lack of technical Latin nomenclature whereinto state his case. Yet he is a true poet, and one who byhis noble art is raised high above the turmoil of daily life,yet remains in loving sympathy with his kind. Thismanly pride of the artist in his own superhuman craft, socommon in every Greek land, is here met on Latin soilfor the first time since Ennius. It lifts this materialistand atheist, tliis scientific foe of all supernatural faith, intoa region of idealism where Plato himself would welcomehim. Whatever the final verdict on his chief doctrines,there are many gems of his thought still to be shared andprized by all lofty thinkers. Yet surely there is something unnatural in his wholeattitude. The artist, seeing and revealing the order, theunity, of Cosmos, striving to reconcile men t