16557 
 
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 egional 
 
 icility
 
 Ex Libris 
 C. K. OGDEN 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
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 Occasional Publications of the Classical Association, No. 6 
 
 A STUDY OF THE 
 
 PERVIGILIUM VENERIS 
 
 BV 
 
 J. F. POBSON, M.A., 
 
 Professor of Greek in the University of Bristol 
 
 Cambridge : 
 
 at the University Press 
 I 916
 
 r/7 
 
 THE PERVIGILIUM VENERIS i 
 
 The Pervigilium Veneris, a remarkable poem of unknown 
 authorship and uncertain age, suffered from undue neglect until 
 comparatively recent years. Writers on Latin literature had 
 mostly failed to appreciate or even understand it. According 
 to Teuffel "The diction is rhetorical and often almost senti- 
 mental/' while Cruttwell wrote "It... is well worth reading 
 from the melancholy despondency that breathes through its 
 quiet inspiration. . . .The refrain. . .may be called the ' last word ' of 
 expiring epicureanism." Sinicox, who appreciated the poetry, 
 deplored the vagueness of expression as unpardonable : but he 
 rehed on a very inferior text, the only one available at the 
 time when he wrote. Finally Schanz, in Miiller's Handbuch, 
 foimd that it did not deserve the admiration which it formerly 
 excited ; " it lacks repose, harmony and clearness, and the style 
 is inchned to be turgid and affected." But after all 'repose' is 
 hardly to be expected of an emotional poem, and lucidity must 
 sometimes be sacrificed to poetical exaggeration, while ' fanciful' 
 gives a truer impression than 'affected.' 
 
 The very text was hard to find; it was printed in certain 
 German Anthologies^, but it does not occur in such works of 
 reference as the majority of English scholars have ready 
 at hand — being omitted both from Walker's and Postgate's 
 
 1 Read to the Bristol Branch on Feb. 26th, 1915. 
 
 ^ E.g. Barman's and Wernsdorf's Poetae Latin i Minores; there is also an 
 edition by Buecheler. See also Anlhologia Latina, edited by F. St J. Thackeray, 
 and du Meril, Poesies popnlaires Intines. In the last few years the poem has 
 become much more accessible — text by J. W. Mackail, Clarendon Press; in 
 The Oxford Book of Latin Verse, ed. H. W. Garrod ; A Latin anthology (Golden 
 Treasury Series), ed. A. M. Cofjk ; The Hundred hcit poems in the Latin language 
 (CJowans and Gray), ed. J. W. Mackail. With Catullus etc. in the Locb Clas-iics, 
 with translation by J. W. Mackail; text with translation and commentary by 
 C. Clcmcriti ( Hlackwcll, Oxford); translation by Sir A. Quillcr-Couch (in hi.s 
 novel lirother Copas). MrfJlcnienti gives a fuller bibliotrraphy. My translation 
 was made before the; publication of any of the translations here mentioned. 
 
 Class. Assoc. Papers, No. 1 
 
 i(K)22()n
 
 2 THE PERVIGILIUM VENERIS 
 
 editions of the Corpus Poetarum. I believe, in fact, that there 
 was no respectable text published in this country until 
 Mr S. G. Owen earned the gratitude of all lovers of poetry 
 by including it as a sort of appendix in his edition of Catullus. 
 
 It remained for a scholar who combined a critic's insight 
 with the appreciation of a poet to restore this poem, at one 
 time so little read, to its place of honour among the finest Latin 
 lyrics ; Mr Mackail, who, some years previously, had done much 
 towards the reconstruction of the shattered and dismembered 
 text, described the poem in his Latin Literature with an appre- 
 ciative enthusiasm which must have driven many students to 
 seek it out for themselves. When they found it they realized 
 that one verse at least was familiar ; a forgotten and perhaps 
 obsolete Latin Grammar had quoted the refrain " Cras amet qui 
 nunquam amavit, quique amavit eras amet," either to illustrate 
 elision, or as an example of the trochaic tetrameter, or, it may 
 be, to shew the jussive use of the subjunctive; but this half- 
 memory could not deter them from reading the poem, and, once 
 found, they took care not to lose it again. The sonorous rich- 
 ness of the language, the varied melody of the verse, present 
 a mysterious charm to the ear; while the picturesque realism 
 of the descriptions, conveyed through a medium so appropriate, 
 makes an appeal no less direct to the imagination. 
 
 To find any parallel in earher literature we must go back, 
 not to the austere style of the Augustan poets, who, perhaps 
 through a desire to avoid the conceits of the Alexandrine school, 
 go too far in the quest of simplicity, and so rob the language of 
 many of its natural beauties, but to the romanticism of Catullus, 
 who by his use of diminutives, such as bellus, tenellus, misellus, 
 of compound adjectives like nemorivagus, silvicultrix, ederigerae, 
 and even more by his sense of the musical quahty not only in 
 verses but in single words, and even in the repetition of certain 
 letters, proved himself the forerunner of those poets whose 
 language appeals to the ear by its rich sweetness more than by 
 any other quality, though other high qualities are not lacking. 
 It is unnecessary to quote from the hendecasyllables, rich in 
 delicate language, or from the Attis, in which the compound 
 adjectives are as bold as any in Lucretius; a few hues from
 
 THE PERVIGrLnjlVI VENERIS 3 
 
 the true lyrics will shew what I mean by referring to the values 
 of certain individual letters. Thus the liquids and nasals in 
 the following lines cannot have come there by accident — 
 
 Namque Vinia Manlio 
 Qualis Idalium colens 
 'N^enit ad Phrygium Venus 
 Pastorem, bona cum bona 
 Nubet alite virgo. 
 
 and again 
 
 Talis in vario solet 
 Divitis doniini hortulo 
 Stare flos hyacinthinus, 
 
 is another good instance of the kind of fehcity in sound and 
 expression which is appropriate to a romantic lyric. 
 
 The vocabulary of the Pervigilium is luxuriant with a rich- 
 ness like that of Apuleius ; the writer gives free play to his love 
 of bright colours and lights — crimson and purple and green; 
 fire and flames and glittering jewels; his rich adjectives and 
 an undefinable sense of hidden rhyme give a romantic tone to 
 the verse which is naturally musical ; and the rhythm itself is 
 helped by the fact that throughout a very great part of the 
 poem the syllabic accent is in agreement with the quantitative 
 scansion — we may scan either by quantity or by accent with 
 almost equal success. 
 
 But perhaps the most striking characteristic of the Per- 
 vigilium is the spontaneous fervour which pervades it. The 
 poem has been described as impersonal, and in a narrow sense 
 it is so, except for a couple of verses towards the end, to which 
 I shall refer later. It purports to be a hymn written for a 
 special festival, generally identified as the feast of Venus Verti- 
 cordia. It may therefore be compared with Horace's Carmen 
 Saeciflare or the more inspired ode of Catullus — Dianas 
 sumus in fide. But it has something in it which those earUer 
 poems lacked, something which is owed to that Goddess who 
 thawed the icy dignity of Lucretius and impelled him against 
 his will to compose those lays which have outlasted her deity. 
 It is Venus, Dione, Aphrodite — iXdcrKeo t<\v Oeou, eliroou ovpaviav 
 — not the goddess of unchaste or inordinate desires, but one 
 
 1—2
 
 4 THE PERVIGILIUM VENERIS 
 
 closely akin to Her whom the great repiibUcan poet venerated — 
 the dehght of gods and men, at whose coming the winds take 
 flight and the sea breaks into smiles, while Flora, preceding her 
 triumphal progress, strews her path with wondrous colours and 
 perfumes. It is the goddess of Spring-time, the giver of increase 
 to all creation. 
 
 Far from considering the poem impersonal, we may find a 
 personal note in every line. The unknown writer has felt her 
 magic, and the joy of Spring is coursing through his veins. 
 With a fine fearless rapture he lifts his voice in a triumph-song 
 to the great impersonal deity who is the source of his in- 
 spiration. 
 
 The text of the poem, as it is found in the two extant MSS, 
 leaves very much to be desired; a great deal of emendation 
 was inevitable before it could be either scanned or translated. 
 The successive labours of several scholars, however, reduced it 
 to something like order, and formed what we may call the 
 authorized text printed in Owen's Catullus. In this the scan- 
 sion is for the most part satisfactory, and the sense reasonably 
 continuous. It must be admitted that the exact meaning is 
 in many places obscure, though the general sense is clear. The 
 Latin, in fact, is difficult; but such difficulty may always be 
 due rather to the workings of the author's mind than to the 
 imperfections of the codices; we do not condemn or emend 
 Virgil because we find it hard to put the Aeneid into English. 
 
 Modern critics, however, have beheved in the existence of 
 extraordinary distortions, for which the utmost perversity of 
 that dog with a bad name, the copyist, is hardly bad enough 
 to account. 
 
 If we compare the order of the lines in the MSS with those 
 given either by Mr Mackail or Mr Clementi, we are irresistibly 
 led to beheve that at some time or other the text must have 
 been subjected to the process which proved so disastrous to 
 the oracles of the Cumaean Sibyl. That perverse prophetess, 
 according to Virgil, used to write her inspired utterances on 
 dry leaves. When an incautious devotee came to" consult the 
 oracle, the opening of the door let in a draught of wind, which 
 sent the leaves fluttering in disorder all over the cave, and the
 
 THE PER\T[GILIUM VENERIS 5 
 
 Sibyl never cared to rearrange them. The result is tersely 
 described : 
 
 Inconsulti abeurit, sedemque odere Sibyllae. 
 
 What the Sibyl did not attempt, these modern critics have 
 dared, being unwilling to admit that, even if the authentic 
 original could not be recovered, excellent sortes at any rate 
 might be obtained by taking the leaves in the order in which 
 they were first picked up. 
 
 The impulse to rearrangement or reconstruction was given 
 by an apocryphal note at the head of the poem in the Codex 
 Salmasianvs : " Inci'pit per vi[r]giliu}n veneris trocaico metro sunt 
 vero versus xxii." Older critics had supposed a corruption in 
 the number, and the reading of ninety-two for twenty-two found 
 some favour, since that is the number of the lines in the Codex 
 Thuaneus, which omits the refrain once. Mr Mackail, in an 
 article in the Journal of Philology, vol. xvii, besides proposing 
 many important verbal improvements, was the first to suggest 
 that versus meant not verses but stanzas, and accordingly he 
 rearranged the poem in such a way as to form twenty-two 
 stanzas of four hues, each followed by the refrain. As the 
 number of lines was not quite sufiicient, he was compelled to 
 assume some slight lacunae, and these he filled up by conjecture 
 for an edition published some years later by the Doves Press. 
 More recently Mr Mackail has abandoned the theory of the 
 stanzas, and tells us that the number XXII refers to the con- 
 tents of a section of the anthology at the beginning of which 
 it stands^. 
 
 Mr Clementi, in his edition of 1911, gave the fight to a new 
 theory. Starting again with the puzzle of versus xxii, he took 
 these words to refer to the first line of the poem, which is also the 
 refrain, and interpreted the note to mean "there are twenty-two 
 verses eras amet etc," i.e. twenty-two repetitions of the same line. 
 
 The number twenty-two, however, proved intractable, and 
 accord i rig] V Clementi accepted the suggestion of Buechelor that 
 XXII should be changed to XIII, and then made a fresh 
 arrangement of the poem, dividing it neatly into strophes and 
 
 1 Introduction to the Pervigilivm (Locb Classics).
 
 e THE PERVIGILIUM VENERIS 
 
 antistrophes of varying lengths and of such number that the 
 refrain, coming at the end of every one, might occur thirteen 
 times and no more. He was obhged for this purpose to omit the 
 first hne, and make the poem begin with " Ver novum." 
 
 Both the rearrangements to which I have referred are highly 
 ingenious and satisfactory ; in Mr Mackail's edition the lines of 
 the known author are undistinguishable by their style from those 
 of the unknown, and as, by some oversight of the general editor, 
 no special mark is used to indicate the interpolations, the new 
 text strikes the reader as thoroughly satisfactory and complete. 
 The only fault to be found is that in one passage at least 
 Mr Mackail has perhaps made the syntax too easy^. 
 
 But heartily as we must admire the surgical skill which has 
 thus put the crooked straight, there may be some of us who 
 hanker after the simpHcity of the old days when specialists 
 were less eager to perform these capital operations. Was the 
 dislocation in this case serious enough to require such drastic 
 remedies? The chief object of the present paper is to attempt 
 to prove that the traditional order may be defended^. It is 
 capable of being improved, no doubt ; but experience seems to 
 shew that poets sometimes give us their thoughts not in logical 
 sequence but in the order in which they happen to occur. 
 Modern recensions have castigated the text of Propertius into 
 a semblance of order, but we sometimes wonder whether it is 
 the more Propertian on that account. 
 
 The poem in its original form begins with the refrain, an 
 exhortation to all hearers to tune their hearts to the music of 
 Spring, in readiness for the festival of to-morrow : 
 
 Let the loveless love tomorrow, let the lover love again, 
 Spring is come, the tuneful springtime ; in the spring the world was bom ; 
 Spring's the tune when love is plighted ; then the wild bird finds his mate. 
 And the forest spreads her tresses, quickened by the rain's caress; 
 For the queen of love, Dione, early on tomorrow's mom 5 
 
 Twimng boughs of tender myrtle shall her leafy arbours dress. 
 Over all in judgement sitting, high upon her throne of state; 
 Let the loveless love tomorrow, let the lover love again. 
 
 1 w. 6G sqq. 
 
 2 My translation follows the order of the hues in the MSS, of which 
 Clementi gives a collation, except for the transposition of one line (v. 72). I 
 have used Owen's text with a few alterations.
 
 THE PERVIGILIUM VENERIS / 
 
 For to-morrow is a day of peculiar sanctity, being the birthday 
 of Dione who is Aphrodite the foam-goddess, with whose name 
 the month of April must be connected^ : 
 
 Then from flecks of foam the ocean, 'mid the creatures of his flood 
 And his dolphin-steeds twy-footed, bore a child of heavenly blood, lo 
 Bore Dione' s self, engendered of the billows of the main; 
 Let the loveless love tomorrow, let the lover love again. 
 
 This mention of the birthday of Venus leads not unnatur- 
 ally to some description of her attributes ; she is the giver of 
 colour and beauty in general, and her chosen emblem is the 
 rose, whose marriage is mystically solemnized — 
 
 She it is with flowery jewels paints the year a purple hue. 
 
 She that tempts those swelling bosoms with the breath of the West-wind, 
 
 Coaxing buds to burst in blossom, she that sprinkles shining dew, 15 
 
 Liquid pearls of dewy moisture by the night-air left behind; 
 
 See the quivering drops that glisten; languid every gathering sphere 
 
 Checks its Kngering course, reluctant till it falls, a tiny tear. 
 
 Lo the buds of flowering purple lay their modesty aside; 
 
 For the moisture, by the starlight in the calm of night distilled, 20 
 
 Frees their bosoms in the morning from the dewy robes they filled: 
 
 Hers the power that on the morrow makes the virgin rose a bride 
 
 Offspring of the blood of Venus and of Cupid's kisses warm 
 
 Flames of fire and ghttering jewels and the sunbeam purple-lined. 
 
 She shall shed the fiery raiment that conceals her blushing form, 25 
 
 Unashamed before her lover, since for marriage she is fain: 
 
 Let the loveless love tomorrow, let the lover love again. 
 
 After this short description of the powers of the Goddess, we 
 proceed to a picture of the opening scene of the festival itself : 
 
 Now the goddess bids her maidens wander in the mjTtle-grove, 
 
 See, the boy-god walks among them — none, I deem, would say of Love 
 
 That, with arrows in his quiver, he was keeping hoUday; 30 
 
 So she sent him mother-naked, lest his weapons cause alarm; 
 
 Come, ye nymphs, for Love is idle; Love has put his arms away, 
 
 Bow unstrung and torch unkindled, ne'er a shaft to do you harm: 
 
 Yet, ye tender Nymphs, beware him ; fatal is his loveliness. 
 
 Naked though he stand before you, armoured is he none the less: 35 
 
 T^t the loveless love tomorrow, let the lover love again. 
 
 But at this point an explanation is needed; there exists in 
 some minds a prejudice against midnight celebrations (the 
 ancient Senatns CVjiisnltuin do Bacchanalibus will occur to the 
 
 ^ So Ovid derived Aprilis from afpos. Fadi, iv. 01 w/7.
 
 g THE PERVIGILIUM VENERIS 
 
 reader) ; but this Vigil or llapvux^'^ is of a different nature, so 
 pure, indeed, that Diana herself, but for long-standing prejudice, 
 might be invited to share in the festival : 
 
 Delian Virgin, Venus sends thee virgins chcaste as thou art chaste; 
 Only one the prayer we utter — quit the woodlands, huntress-queen: 
 So the forest may be guiltless of the blood of slaughtered deer, 
 Spreading wide its flowery curtains and its canopies of green. 4° 
 
 Nay, the queen herself would bid thee— could thy maidenhood consent- 
 She would crave thy presence with us, could thy modesty relent. 
 Thou should'st see the choirs of dancers wander through the forest fair 
 Hand in hand, three nights together, Cupid's holiday to share. 
 Wearing garlands twined of roses, 'mid the myrtles interlaced. 45 
 
 Bacchus, Ceres and Apollo, god of minstrels, grace the throng, 
 While, to keep this hallowed vigil, through the night-air swells their song: 
 "Maid of Delos, quit the forest; sovereign here, Dione, reign; 
 Let the loveless love tomorrow, let the lover love again." 
 
 From the spectacle of the dancers in the forest we lift our 
 eyes to see the Queen and Lawgiver herself enthroned in 
 majesty above: 
 
 On the side of flowery Hybla she hath raised her justice-seat, 5° 
 
 There she sits, and all in council rest the Graces at her feet: 
 Hybla, pour thy wealth of blossom, all the tribute of the year, 
 Hybla, spread thy flowery mantle wide, as wide as Henna's plain. 
 Hither come the nymphs of meadows, hither nymphs of fountains clear. 
 Dwellers all in grove or forest, dwellers on the hilLs above, 55 
 
 Round the fluttering Boy-god's mother, courtiers in our Lady's train. 
 As she warns her heedless maidens, "Put no trust in naked Love." 
 Let the loveless love tomorrow, let the lover love again. 
 
 The picture is now complete, but there is still more to be 
 said about the sanctity of the day. This takes us back to an 
 age before the birth of Gods and Goddesses, to the primeval 
 union of the Heaven and the Earth. 
 
 On the morrow Father Aether first was wedded with the Earth, 
 When from Clouds the Lord of Spring-tide made the wondrous year to grow ; 
 Then upon her kindly bosom He in quickening rain did flow, 61 
 
 MingUng with her mighty body, fostering life throughout the whole. 
 When the Mother felt his spirit coursing through her inmost soul. 
 By her hidden strength conceiving, forth the wondrous power she sent, 
 Sent the seed upon its passage through her body's every vein, 65 
 
 Through the land and through the ocean, through the mighty firmament, 
 Bidding all the vast creation learn the mystery of Birth; 
 Let the loveless love tomorrow, let the lover love again.
 
 THE PERVIGILIUM VENERIS 9 
 
 The transition to the next section is difficult; so much so 
 that I am tempted to withdraw something of what I have said 
 about dislocations and transfer to this place the stanza refer- 
 ring to the birth of Dione, in order to make the history con- 
 tinuous : 
 
 Througli her power her Trojan grandsons found in Latian land a home, 
 
 She bestowed the fair Lavinia, honoured bride, upon her son; 70 
 
 Then to Mars in proper season gave the maid from Vesta's shrine. 
 
 She in marriage joined the Sabine maidens with the sons of Rome: 
 
 Mother of the Roman people through all ages yet to run. 
 
 From Quirinus down to Caesar, latest offspring of the Une: 
 
 Let the loveless love tomorrow, let the lover love again. 75 
 
 Now from the power of Dione over the human race we pass 
 to her wider influence upon inanimate Nature and the brute- 
 creation, till the poem ends on a minor chord with a reference 
 to the disappointment of the poet's own hopes : 
 
 Pleasure makes the fields to blossom with the joy that Venus yields; 
 Love himself, Dione's darling. Love was born among the fields: 
 From the meadow She received him, fondled softly on her breast. 
 Fed him on the choicest kisses from the Ups of flow' rets pressed: 
 Let the loveless love tomorrow, let the lover love again. 80 
 
 See the cattle in the pasture stretched beside the golden broom. 
 Every herd in due submission bowing under Hymen's sway: 
 While the flocks, already mated, in the shade together throng. 
 Still the goddess bids the warblers sing and never stint their lay. 
 Still the swans throughout the marshes harshly voice their strident song : 85 
 She that once was bride of Tereus chants within the poplar's gloom — 
 Not the weeping for a sister, by her husband's lust betrayed. 
 But a burst of joyous music, like the love-song of a maid. 
 She may sing, but I am songless; when, oh when comes Spring for me? 
 When shall I, like Procne yonder, break from bonds of silence free? 90 
 Now, my Muse through silence wasted, Phoebus holds me in disdain. 
 So Amyclae once was wasted, fatal silence wrought her bane: 
 Let the loveless love tomorrow, let the lover love again. 
 
 The meaning of the last lines is doubtful ; Pater takes it 
 to be "this is the last utterance of the true spirit of Roman 
 poetry"; or it might conceivably mean that paganism, so 
 gloriously expressed in these lines, is threatened with destruc- 
 tion from without. In either case the mention of Amyclae is 
 appropriate. The legend of tlint town is, according to Servius,
 
 10 THE PERVIGILIUM VENERIS 
 
 that a severe penalty was decreed for any who should give a 
 false alarm of an enemy's approach. When the enemy really 
 came, no one dared to cry 'Wolf,' and the city fell by storm. 
 The sense then would be "The enemy is at our gates, and we 
 are caught asleep." Perhaps it is idle to search for any hidden 
 meaning, and better to take the passage in its literal sense; 
 the poet, immersed perhaps in the sterner affairs of life, feels 
 that he has lost his touch and longs for a greater facility which 
 is denied to him. The apology was unnecessary. 
 
 The metre of the Pervigilium, as I have indicated by the 
 translation, is the trochaic tetrameter (catalectic), of which 
 perhaps the best known example in our language is Tennyson's 
 Locksley Hall. I mention this because it seems to me almost 
 certain that Tennyson had the Latin poem in mind when he 
 wrote the lines about Spring : 
 
 In the Spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest 
 
 might be an expansion of "vere nubunt alites"; the "livelier 
 iris" which "kindles on the burnished dove" is an expression 
 quite in keeping with the love of gorgeous colours so apparent 
 in this old spring-song ; while vere concordant amoves may have 
 suggested the too often profaned lines about "a young man's 
 fancy." 
 
 The rapid rhythm of the trochaic tetrameter was felt by the 
 Greeks to be pecuharly suited for the expression of excitement 
 or enthusiasm. Thus in tragedy this metre is often used at a 
 critical point in the play, where the feehngs of the characters 
 have been worked up to a high pitch. It is felt to be appropriate 
 for Iphigenia to use trochaics, when, in a state of high but sup- 
 pressed excitement, she is trying to persuade Thoas to sanction 
 the arrangements which she hopes will lead to her brother's 
 escape^. In the Agamemnon it is used for the heated dispute 
 between Aegisthns and the chorus^; in the Hercules Furens^ 
 the goddesses Iris and Lyssa conduct an angry quarrel in tro- 
 chaics, and in the Bacchae the hierophant, speaking under the 
 god's inspiration, employs the same metre ^. To go further 
 
 ^ Tph. Tavr. \2QA sqq. ^ vv. IM9 sqq. 
 
 3 vv. 855 sqq. * vv. 616 sqq.
 
 THE PERVIGILIUM VENERIS 11 
 
 back, we find that Archilochus closely associates this verse- 
 form with Dionysus and the dithyramb : 
 
 (Uf Atcoi'i'crot' avoKTos koXov f^dp^ai fie^os 
 ol8a Bidvpaix^ov, fuVo) iTvyKfpavvcodfli (ppevas, 
 
 while a single-hne fragment of Alcman survives from a tro- 
 chaic hymn to Aphrodite, and Scythinus dealt with Apollo in 
 the same measure. Mr J. W. Headlam long ago pointed out 
 the suggestiveness of certain rhythms to the Greek ear, and it 
 is deeply to be regretted that he, with his unique gifts for the 
 work, never went further with his attempts to unravel the 
 metrical tangle of the tragic choruses, a task which he began 
 in two articles in the Hellenic Journal. I am not in a position 
 to assert that the trochaic tetrameter inevitably suggested to 
 the Greek the influence of some god ; but I will go so far as to 
 maintain that it did suggest a frame of mind which might often 
 be due to a god's influence. To the Romans, who used it 
 rarely, it seems to have had a similar suggestion. It occurs 
 but infrequently in Latin literature of classical form; it was 
 employed by early writers such as Naevius, Pacuvius and 
 Accius, and hideous distortions of it are to be found in Plautus ; 
 but by writers of the Golden Age it was, so far as we know, 
 neglected. Its first reappearance in literature seems to be in 
 the age of Hadrian, but it is important to note that it was 
 evidently a favourite metre with the Roman people, and sur- 
 vived in accentual verse long after quantitative scansion had 
 been forgotten or ceased to be widely practised. 
 
 To return to the poem under discassion, Walter Pater, with 
 his usual keen insight, imagined that Flavian, the friend of his 
 Marius, had heard the refrain sung in spring-time by the people 
 in the streets of his native Pisa ; its cadence haunted him, and 
 as he lay dying he composed the poem, which Marius took 
 down from his dictation. This is, of course, only a flight of 
 fancy, but the idea that the refrain was a popular chorus may 
 very well be near the truth. Suetonius in his life of Caesar 
 preserves a song sung by the soldiers at Caesar's triumph : 
 
 Ecce Caesar nunc triuiiiphat, qui subegit Gallias, 
 and long afterwards we find triumph-songs in the same metre.
 
 12 THE PERVIGILIUM VENERIS 
 
 Vopiscus in his history of Aiirehan records how the Emperor 
 slew forty-eight Sarmatians in one day ; this, with his previoiis 
 score of 950, brought the number up, roughly, to a thousand, 
 and the soldiers sang in his honour the following doggerel, of 
 which the first couplet is recited in the person of the victor, 
 the second is a kind of answer : 
 
 Mille, mille, mille, mille, mille decollavimus, 
 Unus homo mille mille mille decollavimus; 
 
 at this point inebriate enthusiasm triumphs over rhythm and 
 grammar : 
 
 Mille, mille, mille vivat qui mille mille occidit, 
 
 and the song ends in a more reflective tone : 
 
 Tantum vini habet nemo quantum fudit sanguinis. 
 
 (All the wine the world contains is less than blood by Caesar shed.) 
 
 The metre of a triumph-song would be particularly appro- 
 priate to paeans in honour of a god, and in this connection we 
 may aptly quote from Florus^ : 
 
 Bacche, vitium repertor, plenus adsis vitibus, 
 
 and at a later date, Nemesianus^: 
 
 Tolle thyi'sos, aera pulsa, jam Lyaeus advenit. 
 
 Finally, with a singular fehcity, the early Christian hymnolo- 
 gists used this metre for their own triumph-songs of Christ 
 crucified ; thus Prudentius (ix) : 
 
 Da puer, plectrum, choreis ut canam fideUbus 
 Dulce carmen et melodum, gesta Christi insignia, 
 
 where a subsequent line 
 
 Die tropaeum passionis, die triumphalem crucem, 
 
 clearly indicates the writer's feeling as to the suggestions of the 
 metre. 'Triumph' and 'trophy' in fact occur naturally in 
 poems of this type; thus again in a hymn of Venantius 
 Fortunatus : 
 
 Pange, lingua, gloriosi proeUum certaminis, 
 
 Et super crucis tropaeo die triumphum nobilem. 
 
 1 C. 120 A.D. 2 c. 280 A.D.
 
 THE PERVIGILIUM VENERIS 13 
 
 This metrical tradition is preserved by the hymn sung at 
 Benediction by the Church of Rome: 
 
 Pange, lingua, gloriosi corporis mysterium, 
 
 and finally, the old triumph-song appears once more, disguised, 
 but still recognizable, in 
 
 Praise, my soul, the King of Heaven, to his feet thy tribute bring, 
 
 which the Enghsh church has set to the ancient tune of '^ Pange 
 Lingua'' 
 
 Now let us turn once more to this triumph-song of Venus, 
 the Spring-goddess. Very httle can be determined as to its 
 date, and practically no conjecture can be made of its author- 
 ship. An opinion once put forward that it dated from Augus- 
 tan times may be dismissed in a few words. This view was 
 probably based on the references to Romulus and nepotem 
 Caesarem {v. 72), it being well known that such tributes to the 
 divine descent of the Julian family were a commonplace with 
 the Augustan age. "Nepos Caesar" might well have been a 
 reference to Augustus ; but on the other hand the language by 
 its general style is of much later growth ; the unclassical uses 
 of vel (= et), of toti (= omnes), of pudebit (personal), of various 
 'silver' adjectives (florulentus, congrex, etc.), and of the Greek 
 words chelidon and thronus, are all more suitable to the age of 
 the Antonines if not to a later period. Moreover the festival 
 is to last for three nights, whereas Ovid in the Fasti explicitly 
 states that on the day after the Veneralia (April 2nd) ordinary 
 work is to be resumed^. 
 
 The second century a.d. has a stronger claim. We know 
 that Hadrian dedicated a temple to Roma and Venus, and this 
 occurrence might have suggested such a poem as the present 
 one. Also in Imperial times the third of April was celebrated 
 as the birthday of Quirinus. A three days' festival of Venus, 
 such as the Pervigilium implies, would thus overlap with the 
 day of Quirinus, and this would explain the reference to Romu- 
 lus in r. 72. It is possible that Hadrian, though not of the 
 Julian line, might, by a stretch of imagination, be called nepos; 
 
 » Fasti, iv. lfJ7-8.
 
 14 THE PERVIGILIUM VENERIS 
 
 the power of adoption was far-reaching and the title Caesar 
 supplies a link, while the fact of his honouring Venus, the tute- 
 lary goddess of the Juhan line, suggests that he favoured the 
 idea of relationship. 
 
 There can be no doubt that the association of Venus with 
 the personified city was a notable event. We know of no 
 other temple of Venus being founded in the course of the first 
 three centuries a.d., and certainly the occasion of the celebra- 
 tion of a festival shortly after this high distinction had been 
 conferred on the goddess might well be important enough to 
 evoke a poem like the present. 
 
 Immediately after laying the foundation-stone of the temple 
 on the Sacred Way (April 21st, 121 a.d.), Hadrian left Eome for 
 a long journey through the provinces, returning to Rome in 
 126 A.D. by way of Sicily. During his visit to the island he 
 actually chmbed Mount Etna to see the sunrise, and this may 
 conceivably have suggested to the poet of the Pervigilium the 
 mention of Hybla and, according to one restoration of the text, 
 of Etna itself^. But these names are more naturally taken as 
 only part of the poetical geography on which time and space 
 need impose no limitations. The tone of the poem is purely 
 Roman. 
 
 Parallels of expression in other poets help us Httle; the 
 author may have read Lucretius, who spoke of the marriage of 
 Aether with the Earth, and the reference to Amyclae may be 
 drawn from Virgil. Floras, a writer of Hadrian's time, has 
 been suggested as the author, on the ground that he composed 
 a short poem about roses and was addicted to the use of the 
 trochaic metre ; but Homer was acquainted with roses and 
 Christian bishops have written trochaics. 
 
 Nemesianus (c. 280 a.d.) has also been proposed for the 
 honour, on the ground of a single trochaic line already quoted. 
 Calpurnius Siculus (c. 290 a.d.) has several similarities 
 which may be due to imitation ; e.g. Eel. 14 : 
 
 Cernis ut...vaccae 
 Molle sub hirsuta latus explicuere genista, 
 
 ^ V. 52 "quantus ethne. campus est" [i.e. Ennae, textus receptus; Aetnae, 
 Pithoeus).
 
 THE PERVIGrLIUM VENERIS 15 
 
 ■which is very close to 
 
 Ecce jam subter genistas explicant tauri latiis {Perv. v. 81), 
 
 and he three times uses the metaphor of "nee me Apollo re- 
 spicit" {Perv. v. 91; Calp. Ed. 4; 9, 72, 88). 
 
 An anonymous and undated poem de rosis has a very loud 
 echo of the Pervigilium in the phrase 
 
 Virgineus pudor extenuatur amictu. 
 
 The closest parallel in style is contained in a poem by 
 Tiberianus (c. 336 a.d.). This "Count of Africa, Count and 
 Vicar of Spain and praetorian prefect of Gaul" has quite caught 
 the spirit of the Pervigilium in his idyll beginning 
 " Amnis ibat inter arva valle fvisus frigida^; 
 
 but a study of his prosody reveals a carelessness about quanti- 
 tative scansion which is quite foreign to our author. Finally 
 Fulgentius, a grammarian of the sixth century, produced a 
 parody in the Unes 
 
 Ubi guttas florulentae mane rorant purpui-ae, 
 Humor algens quern serenis astra sudant noctibus. 
 
 On the whole I can see no vaHd reason for assigning the 
 Pervigilium to any of these authors; I am wilHng to believe 
 that Calpurnius was an imitator rather than a model, and thus 
 we are brought back a step nearer to the time of Hadrian, in 
 whose reign it is safe to say that the poem may have been 
 written, and to whom, no doubt, it would be an acceptable 
 offering. The writer must remain anonymous. 
 
 But all such discussions are of trivial importance compared 
 with the possession of the poem itself. All the criticisms and 
 explanations in the world are worth less than the single line 
 Cras araet qui nunquam amavit, quique amavit eras amet. 
 
 ' Lalin Anthology, Macmillan's G.T.S., p. 132. 
 
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