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III. The Poetry: You can’t observe too carefully in Lucretius. SAINTSBURY
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2016
Extract
The subject-matter of the D.R.N. is physics, not ethics; yet the genesis of the poem, as of the Epicurean system itself, must be sought in a moral revulsion. This is one of several apparent paradoxes confronting the interpreter of Lucretius. Like Juvenal (though the comparison with Juvenal’s nostalgic myopia should not be pressed) Lucretius looked at the state of mankind and was appalled by what he saw. He himself would have desired no better epitaph than the words that he applied to Epicurus (6. 24-34). But in taking on himself the mantle of Epicurus he did not inevitably become, what page after page of the D.R.N. proclaims him to be, one of the great satirists of all time. This character no doubt suited his bent; if words alone can ever demonstrate what the romantic critic calls sincerity, Lucretius was sincere.
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- Copyright © The Classical Association 1977
References
Notes
1. Cf. Santayana, 29, on Epicurus’ materialism as motivated by ‘the exigencies of an inward faith’.
2. Cf. Kenney (1971), 17 n. 2; Wallach (1976).
3. In the earlier literary tradition Hesiod was in fact widely held to have antedated Homer: West (M.L.), 47.
4. Cox (1969), 125.
5. Ibid., 126.
6. Ibid., 132; cf. Waszink, 254-7, on the influence of Empedocles on Lucretius.
7. Cf. Kenney (1971), 21.
8. Bright, 608-18.
9. Bailey, 28-9.
10. Kenney (1970), 370-2.
11. Ibid., 381-2.
12. A.P. 7. 24 = 2147-50 G.-P.; cf. Kenney (1971), 236.
13. Kenney (1970), 374-8.
14. Note, apropos of what was said above, p. 14 n. 33, about word-play, ‘Ennius. . . perenni’.
15. See Skutsch, 4.
16. Ibid., 5-7.
17. Bailey, 29-30.
18. Cf. above, p. 5 n. 12.
19. Cf. Duckworth, 38-43.
20. Townend (1965b), 126.
21. Cf. Stokes, 99-103.
22. On the implications of ‘laborem’ cf. above, p. 15 n. 34.
23. See Bailey, 134-44; Classen, 97-9; Maguinness, 72-4, 84-6, 93.
24. For useful discussions of Lucretius’ techniques of argument and proof see Classen, 80-97; West (1975).
25. See Wilkinson, 167-88, esp. 179-80.
26. Ibid., 190-3.
27. Vonlaufen, 10; cf. Kenney (1977b).
28. Wilkinson, 193-4.
29. See Ingalls for the suggestion that Lucretius’ use of repetition is tantamount to formulaic composition.
30. Garrod included in the Oxford Book of Latin Verse 1. 1-148; 2. 1-58, 600-57; 3.1-93, 931-1052; 5.1-54, 925-1010, 1161-1240.
31. Bailey (1949), 155-6; Williams, 717. As an example of callida iunctura cf. 1. 150 ‘. . .nullam rem e nilo gigni diuinitus umquam’, the sort of verse that some would call prosaic – but could a prose sentence make its point by ending with two adverbs? It is the quality of the hexameter cadence that makes such effects possible.
32. Maguinness, 84.
33. Or in some cases have simply not read him with attention. Cf. the remarks of Munro (‘awkward constrained and unfinished. . .[vv. 55-75] form a single loose ill-assorted ill-constructed sentence”) and Bailey (‘uninspired and prosaic, even clumsy in its expression”) ad loc. on 5. 55-90; a passage which I should call as lucid, carefully composed, and telling as any comparable passage in the poem. (On 5. 56-7 see Boyancé, 213 n. 1; Smith, 382, repeats the erroneous interpretation of Bailey and others.)
34. Amory, 153-4; and cf. Sykes Davies, 25.
35. Amory, 168.
36. See Sykes Davies, 36-8; and cf. Townend (1965a), 96-7.
37. West, D. (1969), passim.
38. e.g. by Sellar, 398-403. It would be a pity if the formality of Sellar’s language were to stand in the way of a just appreciation of his qualities as a critic. His chapters on Lucretius still in some respects offer the best introduction to his poetry. ‘No one can read Sellar without acquiring a deeper appreciation of how majestically nature comes to life beneath Lucretius’ descriptive genius’ (Minadeo, 15).
39. Any reader of these words who has served in the Royal Corps of Signals may recall at this point the standard Army explanation of the flow of an electric current in a conductor, based on the analogous behaviour of water in a pipe.
40. Cf. Townend (1965a), 101.
41. Pers. 1. 69-75, Hor. A.P. 14-19; on the temptation to indulge in’virtuoso pieces unrelated to the larger poetic aim’ cf. Brink, 98-9.
42. Kenney (1972a), passim.
43. Bailey, 1515; cf. Crawley, 13; Boyancé, 254 n. 1; (1976), 552-4. Elsewhere in Lucretius uelatus always means ‘covered’; an absolute use in the special sense ‘garlanded’, as postulated by Boyancé, seems implausible.
44. Boyancé well compares Theophrastus’ character of the Superstitious Man.
45. Ήμεΐς yoöv θύωμεν οσίως καϊ καλώς οΰ καθήκεί καί τλλαι πάντα πράττωμβν κατά τούς νόμους (ρ. 258 Usener).
46. On Lucretius’ abundantia cf. Maguinness, 75-7.
47. Williams, 666.
48. Cf. above, p. 32 n. 31.
49. Bailey, 1537, quoting Giussani.
50. See esp. R.R. 1.2;Varro was writing in 37 B.C. when he was eighty, and his words reflect the thoughts and experience of a long life. On the agricultural and economic developments of Italy during the second and first centuries B.C. cf. Rostovtzeff, ii. 550-1 (n. 25). This passage seems to me to cast doubt on Wormell’s remark that ‘Lucretius’ imagination never kindles at the thought of Italy or a specifically Italian countryside’ (49-50).