国外英文文学系列 The Life of Cicero.docx

《国外英文文学系列 The Life of Cicero.docx》由会员分享，可在线阅读，更多相关《国外英文文学系列 The Life of Cicero.docx（329页珍藏版）》请在淘文阁 - 分享文档赚钱的网站上搜索。

1、国外英文文学系列 The Life of CiceroTitle: Life of Cicero Volume OneAuthor: Anthony TrollopeChapter I.INTRODUCTION.I am conscious of a certain audacity in thus attempting to give a further life of Cicero which I feel I may probably fail in justifying by any new information; and on this account the enterprise

2、, though it has been long considered, has been postponed, so that it may be left for those who come after me to burn or publish, as they may think proper; or, should it appear during my life, I may have become callous, through age, to criticism.The project of my work was anterior to the life by Mr.

3、Forsyth, and was first suggested to me as I was reviewing the earlier volumes of Dean Merivales History of the Romans under the Empire. In an article on the Deans work, prepared for one of the magazines of the day, I inserted an apology for the character of Cicero, which was found to be too long as

4、an episode, and was discarded by me, not without regret. From that time the subject has grown in my estimation till it has reached its present dimensions.I may say with truth that my book has sprung from love of the man, and from a heartfelt admiration of his virtues and his conduct, as well as of h

5、is gifts. I must acknowledge that8 in discussing his character with men of letters, as I have been prone to do, I have found none quite to agree with me. His intellect they have admitted, and his industry; but his patriotism they have doubted, his sincerity they have disputed, and his courage they h

6、ave denied. It might have become me to have been silenced by their verdict; but I have rather been instigated to appeal to the public, and to ask them to agree with me against my friends. It is not only that Cicero has touched all matters of interest to men, and has given a new grace to all that he

7、has touched; that as an orator, a rhetorician, an essayist, and a correspondent he was supreme; that as a statesman he was honest, as an advocate fearless, and as a governor pure; that he was a man whose intellectual part always dominated that of the body; that in taste he was excellent, in thought

8、both correct and enterprising, and that in language he was perfect. All this has been already so said of him by other biographers. Plutarch, who is as familiar to us as though he had been English, and Middleton, who thoroughly loved his subject, and latterly Mr. Forsyth, who has struggled to be hone

9、st to him, might have sufficed as telling us so much as that. But there was a humanity in Cicero, a something almost of Christianity, a stepping forward out of the dead intellectualities of Roman life into moral perceptions, into natural affections, into domesticity, philanthropy, and conscious disc

10、harge of duty, which do not seem to have been as yet fully appreciated. To have loved his neighbor as himself before the teaching of Christ was much for a man to achieve; and that he did this is what I claim for Cicero, and hope to bring home to the minds of those who can find time for reading yet a

11、nother added to the constantly increasing volumes about Roman times.It has been the habit of some latter writers, who have left to Cicero his literary honors, to rob him of those which had been accorded to him as a politician. Macaulay, expressing his surprise at the fecundity of Cicero, and then pa

12、ssing on to the praise of the Philippics as senatorial speeches, says of him that9 he seems to have been at the head of the minds of the second order. We cannot judge of the classification without knowing how many of the great men of the world are to be included in the first rank. But Macaulay proba

13、bly intended to express an opinion that Cicero was inferior because he himself had never dominated others as Marius had done, and Sylla, and Pompey, and C?sar, and Augustus. But what if Cicero was ambitious for the good of others, while these men had desired power only for themselves?Dean Merivale s

14、ays that Cicero was discreet and decorous, as with a similar sneer another clergyman, Sydney Smith, ridiculed a Tory prime-minister because he was true to his wife. There is nothing so open to the bitterness of a little joke as those humble virtues by which no glitter can be gained, but only the hap

15、piness of many preserved. And the Dean declares that Cicero himself was not, except once or twice, and for a moment only, a real power in the State. Men who usurped authority, such as those I have named, were the real powers, and it was in opposition to such usurpation that Cicero was always urgent.

16、 Mr. Forsyth, who, as I have said, strives to be impartial, tells us that the chief fault of Ciceros moral character was a want of sincerity. Absence of sincerity there was not. Deficiency of sincerity there was. Who among men has been free from such blame since history and the lives of men were fir

17、st written? It will be my object to show that though less than godlike in that gift, by comparison with other men around him he was sincere, as he was also self-denying; which, if the two virtues be well examined, will indicate the same phase of character.But of all modern writers Mr. Froude has bee

18、n the hardest to Cicero. His sketch of the life of C?sar is one prolonged censure on that of Cicero. Our historian, with all that glory of language for which he is so remarkable, has covered the poor orator with obloquy. There is no period in Ciceros life so touching, I think, as that during which h

19、e was hesitating 10whether, in the service of the Republic, it did or did not behoove him to join Pompey before the battle of Pharsalia. At this time he wrote to his friend Atticus various letters full of agonizing doubts as to what was demanded from him by his duty to his country, by his friendship

20、 for Pompey, by loyalty to his party, and by his own dignity. As to a passage in one of those, Mr. Froude says that Cicero had lately spoken of C?sars continuance in life as a disgrace to the State. It has been seen also that he had long thought of assassination as the readiest means of ending it,1

21、says Mr. Froude. The It has been seen refers to a statement made a few pages earlier, in which he translates certain words written by Cicero to Atticus.2 He considered it a disgrace to them that C?sar was alive. That is his translation; and in his indignation he puts other words, as it were, into th

22、e mouth of his literary brother of two thousand years before. Why did not somebody kill him? The Latin words themselves are added in a note, Cum vivere ipsum turpe sit nobis.3 Hot indignation has so carried the translator away that he has missed the very sense of Ciceros language. When even to draw

23、the breath of life at such a time is a disgrace to us! That is what Cicero meant. Mr. Froude in a preceding passage gives us another passage from a letter to Atticus,4 C?sar was mortal.5 So much is an intended translation. Then Mr. Froude tells us how Cicero had hailed C?sars eventual murder with ra

24、pture; and goes on to say, We read the words with sorrow and yet with pity. But Cicero had never dreamed of C?sars murder. The words of the passage are as follows: Hunc primum mortalem esse, deinde etiam multis modis extingui posse cogitabam. I bethought myself in the first place that this man was m

25、ortal, and then that there were a hundred ways in which he might be put on one side. All 11the latter authorities have, I believe, supposed the hunc or this man to be Pompey. I should say that this was proved by the gist of the whole letterone of the most interesting that was ever written, as tellin

26、g the workings of a great mans mind at a peculiar crisis of his lifedid I not know that former learned editors have supposed C?sar to have been meant. But whether C?sar or Pompey, there is nothing in it to do with murder. It is a questionCicero is saying to his friendof the stability of the Republic

27、. When a matter so great is considered, how is a man to trouble himself as to an individual who may die any day, or cease from any accident to be of weight? Cicero was speaking of the effect of this or that step on his own part. Am I, he says, for the sake of Pompey to bring down hordes of barbarian

28、s on my own country, sacrificing the Republic for the sake of a friend who is here to-day and may be gone to-morrow? Or for the sake of an enemy, if the reader thinks that the hunc refers to C?sar. The argument is the same. Am I to consider an individual when the Republic is at stake? Mr. Froude tel

29、ls us that he reads the words with sorrow and yet with pity. So would every one, I think, sympathizing with the patriots doubts as to his leader, as to his party, and as to his country. Mr. Froude does so because he gathers from them that Cicero is premeditating the murder of C?sar!It is natural tha

30、t a man should be judged out of his own mouth. A man who speaks much, and so speaks that his words shall be listened to and read, will be so judged. But it is not too much to demand that when a mans character is at stake his own words shall be thoroughly sifted before they are used against him.The w

31、riter of the biographical notice in the Encyclopedia Britannica on Cicero, sends down to posterity a statement that in the time of the first triumvirate, when our hero was withstanding the machinations of C?sar and Pompey against the liberties of Rome, he was open to be bought. The augurship 12would

32、 have bought him. So pitiful, says the biographer, was the bribe to which he would have sacrificed his honor, his opinions, and the commonwealth! With no more sententious language was the character of a great man ever offered up to public scorn. And on what evidence? We should have known nothing of

33、the bribe and the corruption but for a few playful words in a letter from Cicero himself to Atticus. He is writing from one of his villas to his friend in Rome, and asks for the news of the day: Who are to be the new consuls? Who is to have the vacant augurship? Ah, says he, they might have caught e

34、ven me with that bait;6 as he said on another occasion that he was so much in debt as to be fit for a rebel; and again, as I shall have to explain just now, that he was like to be called in question under the Cincian law because of a present of books! This was just at the point of his life when he w

35、as declining all offers of public serviceof public service for which his soul longedbecause they were made to him by C?sar. It was then that the Vigintiviratus was refused, which Quintilian mentions to his honor. It was then that he refused to be C?sars lieutenant. It was then that he might have bee

36、n fourth with C?sar, and Pompey, and Crassus, had he not felt himself bound not to serve against the Republic. And yet the biographer does not hesitate to load him with infamy because of a playful word in a letter half jocose and half pathetic to his friend. If a mans deeds be always honest, surely

37、he should not be accused of dishonesty on the strength of some light word spoken in the confidence of familiar intercourse. The light words are taken to be grave because they meet the modern critics eye clothed in the majesty of a dead language; and thus it comes to pass that their very meaning is m

38、isunderstood.My friend Mr. Collins speaks, in his charming little volume 13on Cicero, of quiet evasions of the Cincian law,7 and tells us that we are taught by Ciceros letters not to trust Ciceros words when he was in a boasting vein. What has the one thing to do with the other? He names no quiet ev

39、asions. Mr. Collins makes a surmise, by which the character of Cicero for honesty is impugnedwithout evidence. The anonymous biographer altogether misinterprets Cicero. Mr. Froude charges Cicero with anticipation of murder, grounding his charge on words which he has not taken the trouble to understa

40、nd. Cicero is accused on the strength of his own private letters. It is because we have not the private letters of other persons that they are not so accused. The courtesies of the world exact, I will not say demand, certain deviations from straightforward expression; and these are made most often i

41、n private conversations and in private correspondence. Cicero complies with the ways of the world; but his epistles are no longer private, and he is therefore subjected to charges of falsehood. It is because Ciceros letters, written altogether for privacy, have been found worthy to be made public th

42、at such accusations have been made. When the injustice of these critics strikes me, I almost wish that Ciceros letters had not been preserved.As I have referred to the evidence of those who have, in these latter days, spoken against Cicero, I will endeavor to place before the reader the testimony of

43、 his character which 14was given by writers, chiefly of his own nation, who dealt with his name for the hundred and fifty years after his deathfrom the time of Augustus down to that of Adriana period much given to literature, in which the name of a politician and a man of literature would assuredly

44、be much discussed. Readers will see in what language he was spoken of by those who came after him. I trust they will believe that if I knew of testimony on the other side, of records adverse to the man, I would give them. The first passage to which I will allude does not bear Ciceros name; and it ma

45、y be that I am wrong in assuming honor to Cicero from a passage in poetry, itself so famous, in which no direct allusion is made to himself. But the idea that Virgil in the following lines refers to the manner in which Cicero soothed the multitude who rose to destroy the theatre when the knights too

46、k their front seats in accordance with Othos law, does not originate with me. I give the lines as translated by Dryden, with the original in a note.8As when in tumults rise the ignoble crowd, Mad are their motions, and their tongues are loud; And stones and brands in rattling volleys fly, And all th

47、e rustic arms that fury can supply; If then some grave and pious man appear, They hush their noise, and lend a listening ear; He soothes with sober words their angry mood, And quenches their innate desire of blood.This, if it be not intended for a portrait of Cicero on that occasion, exactly describ

48、es his position and his success. We have a fragment of Cornelius Nepos, the biographer of the 15Augustan age, declaring that at Ciceros death men had to doubt whether literature or the Republic had lost the most.9 Livy declared of him only, that he would be the best writer of Latin prose who was mos

49、t like to Cicero.10 Velleius Paterculus, who wrote in the time of Tiberius, speaks of Ciceros achievements with the highest honor. At this period, he says, lived Marcus Cicero, who owed everything to himself; a man of altogether a new family, as distinguished for ability as he was for the purity of his life.11 Valerius Maximus quotes him as an example of a forgiving character.12 Perhaps the warmest praise ever given to him came f