THE DAWN IN VERGIL

BY ARTHUR L. KEITH

The dawn appears so frequently in Vergil that a careful examination of his manner of using it may very well reflect some stylistic habits of the poet. In the Aeneid there are no fewer than twenty appearances of the dawn, in the Georgics four, and in the Culex only one but a very interesting one. These numbers show that the poet had an unusual fondness for the dawn. As his general practice is, he does not insist upon its precise and consistent definition, and if the final revision of his Aeneid had been made, there is no reason to believe that he would have removed any of the apparent inconsistencies found in its description. We note a few of these inconsistencies.

In about

But the

We may accept Aurora as the normal word for dawn. two-thirds of the examples, this is the word Vergil uses. poet makes no effort to distinguish dawn from Lucifer, the morning star, its herald or concomitant, or from the sun which it so closely precedes, or from the day itself. In 4, 6, Aurora is conceived as carrying the torch of Phoebus. In 5, 105, she rides in the sun-god's chariot, and is probably to be identified with the sun-god himself. A comparison of 4, 118 and 5, 65 shows in identical language Titan, the sun-god, and Aurora performing identical functions. Aurora and day may each drive away the stars, 3, 521 and 5, 42. In these broader aspects Aurora shares her functions with sol and dies and lux. As regards the mythic element of the chariot and horses, Aurora is not closely differentiated from Oriens and Sol. In one respect Aurora retains an individuality. She seems to get entire credit for the colors associated with dawn. The glowing red may be hers or she may impart it to the sea. Her couch is saffron or golden, she herself is goldenyellow as she rides in her rosy chariot. A different shade of red or perhaps a purple describes her chariot in 12, 77. Once in one of Vergil's earliest poems, Culex 44, Aurora is described as scattering the darkness with her rosy locks. This example is perhaps as close as the poet comes to Homer's picturesque epithet, Pododákruλos. In an unusual and portentous instance the dawn is pale, G. 1, 446.

Vergil nowhere dwells on the myth of Dawn but incidentally he shows its main features. She ushers in the day, she scatters light over the world, she reveals the works of men, she leaves the couch of Tithonus, she rides behind her horses. Her traditional connection with hunters and hunting may have contributed to her appearance in 4, 129. Most of these features may be traced back to Homer. In fact, many of his references seem to have been taken bodily from Homer. We need only compare Aen. 4, 129 with Il. 19, 1; Aen. 4, 584 with Il. 24, 695; and Aen. 4, 585 with Il. 11, 1. In this aspect Vergil is least original.

However, there is an element in his treatment of the dawn which is all his own. We may call it his subjective mood. This appears repeatedly and in various ways. The poet's response to the mood of the occasion is finally shown in 5, 739, where the dawn, usually kind, becomes cruel because a ghost must be returned to its proper sphere. The pallida of G. 1, 146 has an ominous sound reflecting the mood of the poet. A different mood prompts the use of diligit and sacrum in 8, 590-1, in the simile which compares the beloved Pallas with the morning star. The feeling is exhibited again in 11, 182, where the morning light, naturally kindly, appears to wretched men. The two moods become more evident through the intentional contrast.

The dawn brings to view the works and labors of men, referens opera atque labores, and is the natural time for the beginning of action. But it seems that the poet marks the appearance of dawn in more than a perfunctory way by his frequent use of iam and interea. He seems to be trying to make his readers see and feel the dawn as he did. He seems to feel that it is a significant hour for things to happen. That he frequently establishes a relation between the dawn and the occasion is most obvious. Servius quotes Asinius Pollio as observing that Vergil often in his descriptions of day used some word that was appropriate for the immediate occasion. It is impossible to deny the truth of this statement as a general principle though the examples cited by Pollio are absurd. He suggests that extulerat in 11, 183 is used here of the dawn because funerals and burials are about to follow. He would have found it difficult to apply this explanation to the same word used in 4, 119; 5, 65; and 8, 501. Servius, probably under the influence of Asinius Pollio, attempts an interpretation of his own on

12, 115. The fact that the horses of the rising sun breathe forth the light from their dilated nostrils (that is, showing great effort) he regards as appropriately indicating the beginning of a day of struggle. I doubt if Vergil concerned himself with so trivial considerations.

Fortunately, however, better examples are at hand for establishing the principle that Vergil's subjective or introspective attitude did influence him in his treatment of dawn. In 3, 521 he has deliberately chosen the hour of the glowing dawn in which to reveal to the Trojans the first sight of the promised land. The hills are dimly seen far away but it is the distance that lends enchantment. The shouts of the sailors as they salute the new land, the libations and prayers offered by father Anchises are all expressive of the mood of the occasion, and are in keeping with the spirit of the dawn as the poet conceived it. A similar case is found in 7, 25: 'And now the sea began to glow with beams of red and from lofty heaven the Dawn, saffron-robed, shone bright in her rosy chariot." It is no mere accident that the poet has again chosen the dawn as the appropriate hour for giving Aeneas his first view of the Tiber river. Its position in Roman imagination and veneration is well known and the poet's mind shares in these feelings and inspired by them he has sought for the occasion a wealth of gorgeous details for his description of the dawn. It is but the appropriate preparation. The subsiding winds add to the solemnity of the hour. The birds of particolored plumage which lull the sky with their songs and fly here and there in the woods bring a suitable charm to the occasion. The poetic feeling could hardly be expressed more delicately than here.

The reader may not follow me so willingly in my next example but I believe the poet's characteristic mood is still there, though it manifests itself in a different way. In 2, 801 when it has become obvious that Aeneas must abandon Troy and the long night of misery is at an end, the poet says: "And the morning star was rising over the crests of lofty Ida and was ushering in the day." Now I believe it is far too commonplace to explain this appearance of the dawn as due to the poet's aim to justify Aeneas's departure before the glare of daylight reveals him to the enemy. We have been fully prepared for his departure for some hours. There is another motive here. The morning star brings relief against the

blackness of the past night and its horrors. It is intended, not too consciously of course, to serve as a beacon of hope for the future. It is as if the poet said that although the enemy held the city and rescue was no longer possible, yet the morning star gives hope of new opportunity and of new happiness. It is the hope of a promised land which, oddly enough, is brought to fruition under another and more glorious dawn. In a similar way Dido's dying despair is relieved by the picture of the rainbow goddess who descends from heaven on saffron wings trailing a thousand varied colors in the full sunlight.

It is this adaptation of dawn to the occasion that gives its description at Vergil's hands a measure of uniqueness. The dawn with its rosy and saffron tints may bring a beautiful coloring to the objects of earth, but it is no less true that the dawn itself is colored by the hues of the poet's mood.

University of South Dakota.

WHISTON AS A SOURCE OF BODMER'S NOAH

BY C. H. IBERSHOFF

In several published articles I have already discussed certain sources of Bodmer's Noah. But I have by no means exhausted the subject of the surprisingly extensive literary borrowings in which Bodmer indulged for his biblical epic. In the present discussion I purpose to deal with his indebtedness, not to a poet, but to a prose writer.

William Whiston (1667-1752) was an English divine of scientific bent of mind who succeeded Sir Isaac Newton as professor of mathematics at the University of Cambridge. Some of his views received a certain praise from men of such eminence as Newton and Locke. And it will scarcely seem amiss to recall that the idea of absolute clerical monogamy, which he advocated, is permanently preserved in the following passage in Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield.1

Matrimony was always one of my favourite topics, and I wrote several sermons to prove its happiness; but there was a peculiar tenet which I made a point of supporting: for I maintained with Whiston that it was unlawful for a priest of the Church of England, after the death of his first wife, to take a second, or, to express it in one word, I valued myself upon being a strict monogamist.

I was early initiated into this important dispute, on which so many laborious volumes have been written. I published some tracts upon the subject myself, which, as they never sold, I have the consolation of thinking were read only by the happy few. Some of my friends called this my weak side; but, alas! they had not, like me, made it the subject of long contemplation. The more I reflected upon it, the more important it appeared. I even went a step beyond Whiston in displaying my principles; as he had engraven upon his wife's tomb that she was the only wife of William Whiston; so I wrote a similar epitaph for my wife, though still living, in which I extolled her prudence, economy, and obedience till death; and, having got it copied fair, with an elegant frame, it was placed over the chimney-piece, where it answered several very useful purposes. It admonished my wife of her duty to me and my fidelity to her; it inspired her with a passion for fame, and constantly put her in mind of her end. But Newton, Locke and Goldsmith are not by any means the

1 Cf. Chapter II.