Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry [68]
made against the "AEneis" by the ancients or moderns. As for the particular exceptions against this or that passage, Macrobius and Pontanus have answered them already. If I desired to appear more learned than I am, it had been as easy for me to have taken their objections and solutions as it is for a country parson to take the expositions of the Fathers out of Junius and Tremellius, or not to have named the authors from whence I had them; for so Ruaeus (otherwise a most judicious commentator on Virgil's works) has used Pontanus, his greatest benefactor, of whom he is very silent, and I do not remember that he once cites him.
What follows next is no objection; for that implies a fault, and it had been none in Virgil if he had extended the time of his action beyond a year--at least, Aristotle has set no precise limits to it. Homer's, we know, was within two months; Tasso; I am sure, exceeds not a summer, and if I examined him perhaps he might be reduced into a much less compass. Bossu leaves it doubtful whether Virgil's action were within the year, or took up some months beyond it. Indeed, the whole dispute is of no more concernment to the common reader than it is to a ploughman whether February this year had twenty-eight or twenty-nine days in it; but for the satisfaction of the more curious (of which number I am sure your lordship is one) I will translate what I think convenient out of Segrais, whom perhaps you have not read, for he has made it highly probable that the action of the "AEneis" began in the spring, and was not extended beyond the autumn; and we have known campaigns that have begun sooner and have ended later.
Ronsard and the rest whom Segrais names, who are of opinion that the action of this poem takes up almost a year and half, ground their calculation thus:- Anchises died in Sicily at the end of winter or beginning of the spring. AEneas, immediately after the interment of his father, puts to sea for Italy; he is surprised by the tempest described in the beginning of the first book; and there it is that the scene of the poem opens, and where the action must commence. He is driven by this storm on the coasts of Africa; he stays at Carthage all that summer, and almost all the winter following; sets sail again for Italy just before the beginning of the spring; meets with contrary winds, and makes Sicily the second time. This part of the action completes the year. Then he celebrates the anniversary of his father's funerals, and shortly after arrives at Cumes. And from thence his time is taken up in his first treaty with Latinus; the overture of the war; the siege of his camp by Turnus; his going for succours to relieve it; his return; the raising of the siege by the first battle; the twelve days' truce; the second battle; the assault of Laurentum, and the single fight with Turnus--all which, they say, cannot take up less than four or five months more, by which account we cannot suppose the entire action to be contained in a much less compass than a year and half.
Segrais reckons another way, and his computation is not condemned by the learned Ruaeus, who compiled and published the commentaries on our poet which we call the "Dauphin's Virgil." He allows the time of year when Anchises died to be in the latter end of winter or the beginning of the spring; he acknowledges that when AEneas is first seen at sea afterwards, and is driven by the tempest on the coast of Africa, is the time when the action is naturally to begin; he confesses farther, that AEneas left Carthage in the latter end of winter, for Dido tells him in express terms, as an argument for his longer stay -
"Quin etiam hiberno moliris sidere classem."
But whereas Ronsard's followers suppose that when AEneas had buried his father he set sail immediately for Italy (though the tempest drove him on the coast of Carthage), Segrais will by no means allow that supposition, but thinks it much more probable that he remained in Sicily till the midst of July or the beginning of August, at which time he places the first appearance of
What follows next is no objection; for that implies a fault, and it had been none in Virgil if he had extended the time of his action beyond a year--at least, Aristotle has set no precise limits to it. Homer's, we know, was within two months; Tasso; I am sure, exceeds not a summer, and if I examined him perhaps he might be reduced into a much less compass. Bossu leaves it doubtful whether Virgil's action were within the year, or took up some months beyond it. Indeed, the whole dispute is of no more concernment to the common reader than it is to a ploughman whether February this year had twenty-eight or twenty-nine days in it; but for the satisfaction of the more curious (of which number I am sure your lordship is one) I will translate what I think convenient out of Segrais, whom perhaps you have not read, for he has made it highly probable that the action of the "AEneis" began in the spring, and was not extended beyond the autumn; and we have known campaigns that have begun sooner and have ended later.
Ronsard and the rest whom Segrais names, who are of opinion that the action of this poem takes up almost a year and half, ground their calculation thus:- Anchises died in Sicily at the end of winter or beginning of the spring. AEneas, immediately after the interment of his father, puts to sea for Italy; he is surprised by the tempest described in the beginning of the first book; and there it is that the scene of the poem opens, and where the action must commence. He is driven by this storm on the coasts of Africa; he stays at Carthage all that summer, and almost all the winter following; sets sail again for Italy just before the beginning of the spring; meets with contrary winds, and makes Sicily the second time. This part of the action completes the year. Then he celebrates the anniversary of his father's funerals, and shortly after arrives at Cumes. And from thence his time is taken up in his first treaty with Latinus; the overture of the war; the siege of his camp by Turnus; his going for succours to relieve it; his return; the raising of the siege by the first battle; the twelve days' truce; the second battle; the assault of Laurentum, and the single fight with Turnus--all which, they say, cannot take up less than four or five months more, by which account we cannot suppose the entire action to be contained in a much less compass than a year and half.
Segrais reckons another way, and his computation is not condemned by the learned Ruaeus, who compiled and published the commentaries on our poet which we call the "Dauphin's Virgil." He allows the time of year when Anchises died to be in the latter end of winter or the beginning of the spring; he acknowledges that when AEneas is first seen at sea afterwards, and is driven by the tempest on the coast of Africa, is the time when the action is naturally to begin; he confesses farther, that AEneas left Carthage in the latter end of winter, for Dido tells him in express terms, as an argument for his longer stay -
"Quin etiam hiberno moliris sidere classem."
But whereas Ronsard's followers suppose that when AEneas had buried his father he set sail immediately for Italy (though the tempest drove him on the coast of Carthage), Segrais will by no means allow that supposition, but thinks it much more probable that he remained in Sicily till the midst of July or the beginning of August, at which time he places the first appearance of