The form and majesty of the tree
bespeak infinite care in cultivation, but the fruit has not lost the
delicate tang and savour of its seed. The poet of the _Ciris_, the
_Copa_, the _Dirae_, and the _Bucolics_ is never far to seek in the
_Aeneid_.
It would be a long story to trace the flowering in the Aeneid of the
seedling sown in Vergil's boyhood garden-plot.[1] The note of intimacy,
unexpected in an epic, the occasional drawing of the veil to reveal the
poet's own countenance, an un-Homeric sentimentality now and then, the
great abundance of sense-teeming collocations, the depth of sympathy
revealed in such tragic characters as Pallas, Lausus, Euryalus, the
insistent study of inner motives, the meticulous selection of incidents,
the careful artistry of the meter, the fastidious choice of words, and
the precision of the joiner's craft in the composition of traditional
elements, all suggest the habits of work practiced by the friends of
Cinna and Valerius Cato.
[Footnote 1: For a careful study of this subject see Duckett,
_Hellenistic Influence on the Aeneid,_ Smith College Studies, 1920.]
The last point is well illustrated in Sinon's speech at the opening of
the second book.
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