And this fair vine, but that her arms surround 65
Her married elm, had crept along the ground.
Ah! beauteous maid! let this example move
Your mind, averse from all the joys of love.
Deign to be lov’d, and every heart subdue!
What Nymph could e’er attract such crowds as you? 70
Not she whose beauty urged the Centaur’s arms,
Ulysses’ queen, nor Helen’s fatal charms.
Ev’n now, when silent scorn is all they gain,
A thousand court you, tho’ they court in vain,
A thousand Sylvans, Demigods, and Gods, 75
That haunt our mountains and our Alban woods.
But if you ‘ll prosper, mark what I advise,
Whom age and long experience render wise,
And one whose tender care is far above
All that these lovers ever felt of love 80
(Far more than e’er can by yourself be guess’d);
Fix on Vertumnus, and reject the rest:
For his firm faith I dare engage my own;
Scarce to himself himself is better known.
To distant lands Vertumnus never roves; 85
Like you, contented with his native groves;
Nor at first sight, like most, admires the Fair;
For you he lives; and you alone shall share
His last affection as his early care.
Besides, he ‘s lovely far above the rest, 90
With youth immortal, and with beauty blest.
Add, that he varies every shape with ease,
And tries all forms that may Pomona please.
But what should most excite a mutual flame,
Your rural cares and pleasures are the same. 95
To him your orchard’s early fruits are due
(A pleasing off’ring when ‘t is made by you);
He values these; but yet, alas! complains
That still the best and dearest gift remains.
Not the fair fruit that on yon branches glows 100
With that ripe red th’ autumnal sun bestows;
Nor tasteful herbs that in these gardens rise,
Which the kind soil with milky sap supplies;
You, only you, can move the God’s desire.
O crown so constant and so pure a fire! 105
Let soft compassion touch your gentle mind;
Think ‘t is Vertumnus begs you to be kind:
So may no frost, when early buds appear,
Destroy the promise of the youthful year;
Nor winds, when first your florid orchard blows, 110
Shake the light blossoms from their blasted boughs!’
This, when the various God had urged in vain,
He straight assumed his native form again:
Such, and so bright an aspect now he bears,
As when thro’ clouds th’ emerging sun appears, 115
And thence exerting his refulgent ray,
Dispels the darkness, and reveals the day.
Force he prepared, but check’d the rash design;
For when, appearing in a form divine,
The Nymph surveys him, and beholds the grace 120
Of charming features and a youthful face,
In her soft breast consenting passions move,
And the warm maid confess’d a mutual love.
PASTORALS
After five years of studying the classics, while still living at Binfield, Pope began to make important friends, including John Caryll, the future dedicatee of The Rape of the Lock. Twenty years older than Pope, Caryll had many acquaintances in the London literary world, introducing the young poet to the playwright William Wycherley and to William Walsh, a minor poet, who helped Pope revise his first major work, The Pastorals, which were first written when he was sixteen years old. In May, 1709, this collection of four seasonal poems was published in the sixth part of Tonson’s Poetical Miscellanies. The Pastorals brought Pope instant fame, convincing him that his future career lay in literature.
Alexander Pope by Michael Dahl, 1727
CONTENTS
The Discourse on Pastoral Poetry
Spring; or, Damon
Summer; or, Alexis
Autumn; or, Hylas and Ægon
Winter; or, Daphne
The Discourse on Pastoral Poetry
Rura mihi et rigui placeant in vallibus amnes,
Flumina amem, sylvasque, inglorius!
VIRG.
There are not, I believe, a greater number of any sort of verses than of those which are called Pastorals; nor a smaller than of those which are truly so. It therefore seems necessary to give some account of this kind of poem; and it is my design to comprise in this short paper the substance of those numerous dissertations that critics have made on the subject, without omitting any of their rules in my own favour. You will also find some points reconciled, about which they seem to differ, and a few remarks which, I think, have escaped their observation. 1
The origin of Poetry is ascribed to that age which succeeded the creation of the world: and as the keeping of flocks seems to have been the first employment of mankind, the most ancient sort of poetry was probably pastoral. 1 It is natural to imagine, that the leisure of those ancient shepherds admitting and inviting some diversion, none was so proper to that solitary and sedentary life as singing; and that in their songs they took occasion to celebrate their own felicity. From hence a poem was invented, and afterwards improved to a perfect image of that happy time; which, by giving us an esteem for the virtues of a former age, might recommend them to the present. And since the life of shepherds was attended with more tranquillity than any other rural employment, the poets chose to introduce their persons, from whom it received the name of Pastoral. 2
A Pastoral is an imitation of the action of a shepherd, or one considered under that character. The form of this imitation is dramatic, or narrative, or mixed of both: 2 the fable simple, the manners not too polite nor too rustic: the thoughts are plain, yet admit a little quickness and passion, but that short and flowing: the expression humble, yet as pure as the language will afford; neat, but not florid; easy, and yet lively. In short, the fable, manners, thoughts, and expressions are full of the greatest simplicity in nature. 3
The complete character of this poem consists in simplicity, 3 brevity, and delicacy; the two first of which render an eclogue natural, and the last delightful. 4
If we would copy nature, it may be useful to take this idea along with us, that Pastoral is an image of what they call the golden age: so that we are not to describe our shepherds as shepherds at this day really are, but as they may be conceived then to have been, when the best of men followed the employment. To carry this resemblance yet further, it would not be amiss to give these shepherds some skill in astronomy, as far as it may be useful to that sort of life; and an air of piety to the gods should shine through the poem, which so visibly appears in all the works of antiquity; and it ought to preserve some relish of the old way of writing: the connection should be loose, the narrations and descriptions short, 4 and the periods concise. Yet it is not sufficient that the sentences only be brief; the whole eclogue should be so too: for we cannot suppose poetry in those days to have been the business of men, but their recreation at vacant hours. 5
But, with respect to the present age, nothing more conduces to make these composures natural, than when some knowledge in rural affairs is discovered. 5 This may be made to appear rather done by chance than on design, and sometimes is best shown by inference; lest, by too much study to seem natural, we destroy that easy simplicity from whence arises the delight. For what is inviting in this sort of poetry proceeds not so much from the idea of that business, as of the tranquillity of a country life. 6
We must therefore use some illusion to render a pastoral delightful; and this consists in exposing the best side only of a shepherd’s life, and in concealing its miseries. 6 Nor is it enough to introduce shepherds discoursi
ng together in a natural way; but a regard must be had to the subject; that it contain some particular beauty in itself, and that it be different in every eclogue. Besides, in each of them a designed scene or prospect is to be presented to our view, which should like wise have its variety. This variety is obtained, in a great degree, by frequent comparisons, drawn from the most agreeable objects of the country; by interrogations to things inanimate; by beautiful digressions, but those short; sometimes by insisting a little on circumstances; and, lastly, by elegant turns on the words, which render the numbers extremely sweet and pleasing. As for the numbers themselves, though they are properly of the heroic measure, they should be the smoothest, the most easy and flowing imaginable. 7
It is by rules like these that we ought to judge of Pastoral. And since the instructions given for any art are to be delivered as that art is in perfection, they must of necessity be derived from those in whom it is acknowledged so to be. It is therefore from the practice of Theocritus and Virgil (the only undisputed authors of Pastoral) that the critics have drawn the foregoing notions concerning it. 8
Theocritus excels all others in nature and simplicity. The subjects of his Idyllia are purely pastoral; but he is not so exact in his persons, having introduced reapers 7 and fishermen as well as shepherds. He is apt to be too long in his descriptions, of which that of the cup in the first pastoral is a remarkable instance. In the manners he seems a little defective, for his swains are sometimes abusive and immodest, and perhaps too much inclining to rusticity; for instance, in his fourth and fifth Idyllia. But it is enough that all others learned their excellences from him, and that his dialect alone has a secret charm in it, which no other could ever attain. 9
Virgil, who copies Theocritus, refines upon his original; and, in all points where judgment is principally concerned, he is much superior to his master. Though some of his subjects are not pastoral in themselves, but only seem to be such, they have a wonderful variety in them, which the Greek was a stranger to. 8 He exceeds him in regularity and brevity, and falls short of him in nothing but simplicity and propriety of style; the first of which, perhaps, was the fault of his age, and the last of his language. 10
Among the moderns their success has been greatest who have most endeavoured to make these ancients their pattern. The most considerable genius appears in the famous Tasso, and our Spenser. Tasso, in his Aminta, has as far excelled all the pastoral writers, as in his Gierusalemme he has outdone the epic poets of his country. But as this piece seems to have been the original of a new sort of poem, the pastoral comedy, in Italy, it cannot so well be considered as a copy of the ancients. Spenser’s Calender, in Mr. Dryden’s opinion, is the most complete work of this kind which any nation has produced ever since the time of Virgil 9 Not but that he may be thought imperfect in some few points: his eclogues are somewhat too long, if we compare them with the ancients; he is sometimes too allegorical, and treats of matters of religion in a pastoral style, as the Mantuan had done before him; he has employed the lyric measure, which is contrary to the practice of the old poets; his stanza is not still the same, nor always well chosen. This last may be the reason his expression is sometimes not concise enough; for the tetrastic has obliged him to extend his sense to the length of four lines, which would have been more closely confined in the couplet. 11
In the manners, thoughts, and characters, he comes near to Theocritus himself; though, notwithstanding all the care he has taken, he is certainly inferior in his dialect: for the Doric had its beauty and propriety in the time of Theocritus; it was used in part of Greece, and frequent in the mouths of many of the greatest persons: whereas the old English and country phrases of Spenser were either entirely obsolete, or spoken only by people of the lowest condition. As there is a difference betwixt simplicity and rusticity, so the expression of simple thoughts should be plain, but not clownish. The addition he has made of a calendar to his eclogues is very beautiful; since by this, besides the general moral of innocence and simplicity, which is common to other authors of Pastoral, he has one peculiar to himself; he compares human life to the several seasons, and at once exposes to his readers a view changes and aspects. Yet the scrupulous division of his pastorals into months has obliged him either to repeat the same description, in other words, for three months together, or, when it was exhausted before, entirely to omit it; whence it comes to pass that some of his eclogues (as the sixth, eighth, and tenth for example) have nothing but their titles to distinguish them. The reason is evident, because the year has not that variety in it to furnish every month with a particular description, as it may every season. 12
Of the following eclogues I shall only say, that these four comprehend all the subjects which the critics upon Theocritus and Virgil will allow to be fit for Pastoral; that they have as much variety of description, in respect of the several seasons, as Spenser’s; that, in order to add to this variety, the several times of the day are observed, the rural employments in each season or time of day, and the rural scenes or places proper to such employments, not without some regard to the several ages of man, and the different passions proper to each age. 13
But after all, if they have any merit, it is to be attributed to some good old authors; whose works, as I had leisure to study, so, I hope, I have not wanted care to imitate.
Spring; or, Damon
To Sir William Trumbull
FIRST in these fields I try the sylvan strains,
Nor blush to sport on Windsor’s blissful plains:
Fair Thames, flow gently from thy sacred spring,
While on thy banks Sicilian Muses sing;
Let vernal airs thro’ trembling osiers play, 5
And Albion’s cliffs resound the rural lay.
You, that too wise for pride, too good for power,
Enjoy the glory to be great no more,
And carrying with you all the world can boast,
To all the world illustriously are lost! 10
O let my Muse her slender reed inspire,
Till in your native shades you tune the lyre:
So when the nightingale to rest removes,
The thrush may chant to the forsaken groves;
But charm’d to silence, listens while she sings, 15
And all th’ aërial audience clap their wings.
Soon as the flocks shook off the nightly dews,
Two swains, whom love kept wakeful, and the Muse,
Pour’d o’er the whitening vale their fleecy care,
Fresh as the morn, and as the season fair: 20
The dawn now blushing on the mountain’s side,
Thus Daphnis spoke, and Strephon thus replied:
DAPHNIS.
Hear how the birds on ev’ry blooming spray
With joyous music wake the dawning day!
Why sit we mute, when early linnets sing, 25
When warbling Philomel salutes the spring?
Why sit we sad, when Phosphor shines so clear,
And lavish Nature paints the purple year?
STREPHON.
Sing, then, and Damon shall attend the strain,
While you slow oxen turn the furrow’d plain. 30
Here the bright crocus and blue violet glow;
Here western winds on breathing roses blow.
I ‘ll stake yon lamb, that near the fountain plays,
And from the brink his dancing shade surveys.
DAPHNIS.
And I this bowl, where wanton ivy twines, 35
And swelling clusters bend the curling vines:
Four figures rising from the work appear,
The various seasons of the rolling year;
And what is that, which binds the radiant sky,
Where twelve fair signs in beauteous order lie? 40
DAMON.
Then sing by turns, by turns the Muses sing;
Now hawthorns blossom, now the daisies spring;
Now leaves the trees, and flowers adorn the ground:
Begin, the vales sha
ll every note rebound.
STREPHON.
Inspire me, Phœbus, in my Delia’s praise, 45
With Waller’s strains, or Granville’s moving lays!
A milk-white bull shall at your altars stand,
That threats a fight, and spurns the rising sand.
DAPHNIS.
O Love! for Sylvia let me gain the prize,
And make my tongue victorious as her eyes: 50
No lambs or sheep for victims I ‘ll impart,
Thy victim, Love, shall be the shepherd’s heart.
STREPHON.
Me gentle Delia beckons from the plain,
Then, hid in shades, eludes her eager swain;
But feigns a laugh to see me search around, 55
And by that laugh the willing Fair is found.
DAPHNIS.
The sprightly Sylvia trips along the green;
She runs, but hopes she does not run unseen.
While a kind glance at her pursuer flies,
How much at variance are her feet and eyes! 60
STREPHON.
O’er golden sands let rich Pactolus flow,
And trees weep amber on the banks of Po;
Blest Thames’s shores the brightest beauties yield:
Feed here, my lambs, I ‘ll seek no distant field.
DAPHNIS.
Celestial Venus haunts Idalia’s groves; 65
Diana Cynthus, Ceres Hybla loves:
If Windsor shades delight the matchless maid,
Cynthus and Hybla yield to Windsor shade.
STREPHON.
All nature mourns, the skies relent in showers,
Hush’d are the birds, and closed the drooping flowers; 70
If Delia smile, the flowers begin to spring,
The skies to brighten, and the birds to sing.
DAPHNIS.
All Nature laughs, the groves are fresh and fair,
The sun’s mild lustre warms the vital air;
If Sylvia smiles, new glories gild the shore, 75
And vanquish’d Nature seems to charm no more.
STREPHON.
In spring the fields, in autumn hills I love,
At morn the plains, at noon the shady grove,
But Delia always; absent from her sight,
Alexander Pope - Delphi Poets Series Page 12