File:Introduction to classical Latin literature (1904) (14780663971).jpg

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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he heavens,Lunas phases, the suns diverse eclipses, and whereforeEarth is shaken, or why the billows are fiercely uplifted.Why do the wintry suns so hasten to dip in the ocean ?What is the power meantime that our wearisome nights isretarding ? Yet if it be not mine to attain to the secrets of Nature,Since by the sluggish blood about my heart I am hindered,Yet be the fields my delight, with the rivers that water the valleys ;Surely the streams I may love, and forests, forgetful of glory ...Blessed indeed is he who attaineth the sources of all things,Whoso under his feet each mortal terror has trampled.Even relentless Fate, with the roar of insatiate Hades.Yet is he happy who winneth the rustic divinities friendship:Pan, and the sisterhood of the Nymphs, and the hoary Sil- These tones are the sincerest in all Virgilian song.Some of the lines are actually relocated in the yEneid.lie wavers between faith and doubt; he returns to simpleand rural nature/or consolation. Nothing could be more
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MELPOMEXE, YIRGIL, AXD CLIO.Hiidrnmetum mosaic at Susa, Tunisia. VIEGIL 161 modern, more like Cloughs or Matthew Arnolds verse. Asfor the rude local gods whom he names, they but typifythe familiar scenes themselves. Educated Komans, fromCicero down, were only more cautious than Lucretias, notmore credulous. No serious enlightened man believedthe Olympian myths, or their freely embroidered Latinequivalents. All large constructive faith was dead. But this lover of rustic life, of the old simple ways andfaiths of his own people, was early drawn into the serviceof the imperial court and dynasty, which considered theoutworn Olympic theology, and especially, with it, theworship of the dead Julius and the living Augustus, as aneminently desirable and edifying belief : for the people.That the rather undignified and jocular Octavian, in hisown familiar circle which included both the poets, failedto ridicule such pretensions for himself, few will believe.Even in a public reading at court, such

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