Qualem saepe cava montis convalle solemus Despicere(413), etc.,
and again the opening scene of the poem, at i. 43,
Vere novo gelidus canis cum montibus umor Liquitur, et Zephyro putris se glaeba resolvit(414),
familiar to Roman readers. And while the 'caeli indulgentia' characteristic of the Italian climate is felt as a pervading genial presence through the various books of the poem, the sudden and violent vicissitudes to which that climate is especially liable form part of the varied and impressive spectacle presented to us. The passage i. 316-321,
Saepe ego cum flavis ... stipulasque volantis,
records a calamity to which the labours of the Italian husbandman were peculiarly exposed. In the description of the storm of rain, immediately following, the words 'collectae ex alto nubes' remind us, like the description of a similar storm in Lucretius (vi. 256-261), that Virgil, as Lucretius may have done, must often have watched such a tempest gathering over the sea that washes the Campanian shores. The inundation of the Po is described among the omens accompanying the death of Caesar, in lines which may have been suggested by some scene actually witnessed by the poet, and which with vivid exactness represent for all times the destructive forces put forth by the great river that drains the vast mountain-ranges of Northern Italy:--
Proluit insano contorquens vertice silvas Fluviorum rex Eridanus, camposque per omnes Cum stabulis armenta tulit(415).
And while the general representation of Nature, in the freshness or serene glory of her beauty and in her destructive energy, is true to that aspect which she presents in Italian scenery, the characteristic features and products of particular localities in the various regions of Italy are recalled to memory with truthful effect. The love of Nature in Lucretius appears apart from local associations. In Horace this feeling seems to link itself to places dear to him from the memories of childhood, or from the personal experience of later years. In Virgil the feeling is both general as in Lucretius, and combined with attachment to or interest in particular places as in Horace. But Virgil is able to feel enthusiasm not only for places dear to him through personal association, but for all which appeal to his sentiment of national pride. As was seen in the last chapter, the episode, which perhaps more than any other brings out the inspiring thought of the poem, is devoted to a celebration of the varied beauties of the land; and the names of Clitumnus, of Larius, and Benacus are still dearer to the world because they are for ever intermingled with 'the rich Virgilian rustic measure(416).' In the body of the poem also we find many local references to the northern, central, and southern regions of Italy. The light bark, hollowed out of the alder, is launched on the rapid flood of the Po; the starwort, out of which wreaths are made to adorn the altars of the gods, is gathered by shepherds by the winding banks of the Mella (a river in Northern Italy mentioned also by Catullus); the meadow-land which unfortunate Mantua lost is adduced as a type of the best kind of pasture, and the land in the neighbourhood of Capua and the region skirting Mount Vesuvius as that most suitable for corn-crops. We read also of the rose-beds of Paestum,--of the olives clothing the sides of the Samnian Taburnus,--of the woodland pastures of Sila,--of those by the banks of the Silarus, on Alburnus green with ilexes, and by the dry torrent-bed of the Tanager,--and of the yellow cornfields through which the dark Galaesus flows. The Aeneid affords further testimony of the interest which Virgil awakens in the region which forms the distant environment of Rome. But the sentiment of the Georgics is a sentiment of peace inspired by the land, quite different from that inspired by the Imperial City, and from the memories of war and conquest with which the neighbourhood of Rome is associated. And though the aspect which Nature generally presents in the poem is that of her nobler mood, yet that air of indolent repose which characterises her presence in the Eclogues is not altogether absent from the severer poem. The sense of rest after toil--'molles sub arbore somni,'--the quiet contemplation of wide and peaceful landscapes,--'latis otia fundis,'--relieve the strain of strenuous labour which is enforced as the indispensable condition of realising the glory of the land.