The most interesting of the minor poems among the Catalepton is one written at the time when the young poet entered on the study of philosophy under Siron the Epicurean. This poem expresses the joy felt by him in exchanging the empty pretension and dull pedantry of rhetorical and grammatical studies for the real enquiries of philosophy:--
Ite hinc, inanes rhetorum ampullae, Inflata rore non Achaico verba, Et vos, Stiloque, Tarquitique, Varroque, Scholasticorum natio madens pingui, Ite hinc, inanis cymbalon iuventutis. * * * * * Nos ad beatos vela mittimus portus, Magni petentes docta dicta Sironis, Vitamque ab omni vindicabimus cura(166).
These lines are the earliest expression of that philosophical longing which haunted Virgil through all his life as a hope and aspiration, but never found its realisation in speculative result. The motive which he professes for entering on the study,
is the same as that which acted on Lucretius--the wish to secure an ideal serenity of life. The same trust in the calming influence of the Epicurean philosophy appears in the
Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas, etc.
of the second Georgic. But in different ways, by the deep feeling of melancholy in the one, by the revolt and spiritual reaction in the other, Lucretius and Virgil both show that these tenets could not secure to 'the passionate heart of the poet' that calmness and serenity of spirit which they gave to men of the stamp of Atticus, Velleius, or Torquatus. The final lines of the poem express the lingering regret with which he bids a temporary farewell to the Muses. These few lines, more than any other poem attributed to Virgil, seem to bring him in his personal feelings nearer to us. There is a touch of the graciousness of his nature, recalling the cordial feeling of Catullus to all his young comrades, in the passing notice of those who had shared his studies:--
At a time when the poetry of the younger generation was universally free and licentious in tone, the purity of Virgil's nature reveals itself in the prayer to the Muses to revisit his writings 'pudenter et raro,' chastely and seldom. The whole poem is the sincere expression of the scholar and poet, even in youth idealising the austere charm of philosophy, while feeling in his heart the more powerful attraction of poetry. In the