quae poscente magis gaudeat eripi, interdum rapere occupet. Act ii, sc. 2. The plight of the honest Cornutus: What should I do at court? I cannot lie, is the plight of the honest Umbricius, Juvenal, 3, 41-42: quid Romae faciam? mentiri nescio; librum, si malus est, nequeo laudare. Act ii, sc. 3. "Alcmaeon or blind Oedipus." These were two of Nero's rôles (Dio Cassius, 63, 9). Scaevinus' prayer: O you home-born Gods of our country, Romulus and Vesta, That Tuscan Tiber and Rome's towers defends, To former evils; let this hand revenge The wronged world; enough we now have suffered. is modeled on Virgil, Geor. 1, 498-501: di patrii, Indigetes, et Romule Vestaque mater, Act iii, sc. 2. Nero's threat that Vespasian shall sleep the "iron sleep of death" Act iii, sc. 6. recalls the "ferreus somnus" of Aen. 10, 745. Scaevinus' first speech: But that our temples and our houses smoke, Not Pyrrhus, nor thou, Hannibal, art author; We do not then at all complain; our harms And cloy the Parthian with revenge and pity, iam nihil, o Superi, querimur; scelera ista nefasque And his later words in the same scene: The Gods sure keep it hid from us that live may be compared with Lucan, 4, 519-20: Act iv, sc. 1. Poppaea's description of the marriage of Sporus: Be had between you? solemn feasts prepared, While all the court with "God give you joy" sounds? may be compared with Juvenal, 2, 119-20: signatae tabulae, dictum "feliciter," ingens cena sedet, segmenta et longos habitus et flammea sumit. Act iv, sc. 2. Piso's final speech: Why should we move desperate and hopeless arms, Not Tiber colour? Yet am I proud you would for me have died; Your own good wishes rather than the thing Do make you see, this comfort I receive Of death unforced. But to be long in talk of dying would is adapted from Otho's final speech, Tacitus, Hist. 2, 47: hunc animum, hanc virtutem vestram ultra periculis obicere nimis grande vitae meae pretium puto. quanto plus spei ostenditis, si vivere placeret, tanto pulchrior mors erit... an ego tantum Romanae pubis, tot egregios exercitus sterni rursus et rei publicae eripi patiar? eat hic mecum animus, tamquam perituri pro me fueritis; sed este superstites. . . . plura de extremis loqui pars ignaviae est. praecipuum destinationis meae documentum habete, quod de nemine queror; nam incusare deos vel homines eius est qui vivere velit. Act iv, sc. 4. Lucan's lament for Piso: The love and dainties of mankind is gone, comes from Suetonius, Titus, 1, "amor ac deliciae generis humani.' Scaevinus' complaint: Our private whisperings listen'd after; nay, Our thoughts were forced out of us and punisht; Our understanding, as you did our speech, You would have made us thought this honest too, recalls Tacitus, Agricola, 2: "adempto per inquisitiones etiam loquendi audiendique commercio. memoriam quoque ipsam cum voce perdidissemus, si tam in nostra potestate esset oblivisci quam tacere." And his further complaint: His robbing altars, sale of holy things, The antique goblets of adored rust And sacred gifts of kings and peoples old, borrows the language of Juvenal, 13, 147-9: confer et hos veteris qui tollunt grandia templi pocula adorandae robiginis et populorum dona vel antiquo positas a rege coronas. Act iv, sc. 5. Nero's command, "Let it (sc. his death) be a feeling one," is borrowed from Suetonius, Caligula, 30, "ita feri ut se mori sentiat." Poppaea's mention of Otho, "now (under pretext of governing) exiled to Lusitania," is perhaps based on Tacitus, Hist. 1.13, "in provinciam Lusitaniam specie legationis seposuit." Act iv, sc. 6. Seneca's farewell to his friends: Where are your precepts of philosophy, Where our prepared resolution So many years fore-studied against danger? To whom is Nero's cruelty unknown, Or what remain'd after his mother's blood But his instructor's death? But that in Seneca the which you lov'd, Which you admir'd, doth and shall still remain, etc., follows Tacitus, Annals, 15, 62: rogitans ubi praecepta sapientiae, ubi tot per annos meditata ratio adversum imminentia? cui enim ignaram fuisse saevitiam Neronis ? neque aliud superesse post matrem fratremque interfectos quam ut educatoris praeceptorisque necem adiceret, with a phrase from Tacitus, Agricola, 46, "quidquid ex Agricola amavimus, quidquid mirati sumus, manet mansurumque est," etc. And the reply of one of his friends: If there be any place for ghosts of good men, But in remembrance of thy deeds and words, borrows freely from the closing chapter of the Agricola: "Si quis piorum manibus locus, si, ut sapientibus placet, non cum corpore extinguuntur magnae animae . . . ut omnia facta dictaque eius secum revolvant," etc. Each best day of our life at first doth go, Now die your pleasures, and the days you pray come from Virgil, Geor. 3, 66: optima quaeque dies miseris mortalibus aevi and perhaps Horace, Ep. ii. 2, 55-57: singula de nobis anni praedantur euntes; eripuere iocos, venerem, convivia, ludum; And his raillery of Enanthe's fear of death: What places dost thou fear? Th' ill-favour'd lake they tell thee thou must pass, And the black frogs that croak about the brim? may be compared with Juvenal, 2, 149-50: esse aliquos manes et subterranea regna et contum et Stygio ranas in gurgite nigras. THE USE OF FORMAL DIALOGUE IN NARRATIVE By BARTHOLOW V. CRAWFORD From the days when Job sat with his talkative friends and debated the meaning of his sufferings down to the latest novel of the hour, moral and instructive conversation has had its place in story-telling. But whereas such conversation is employed today either to further the characterization or to assist in setting the tone of a social group, there were during those years of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when the novel was finding itself, a surprising number of instances where the conversation served neither of these purposes. In a sense, instructive conversation was an experiment, not wholly successful, but at the same time useful to the developing novel. It tended on the one hand to break up straight narration by introducing situations involving two or more persons in an intellectual relationship; on the other hand it developed readily into real conversation which advanced characterization and plot. For a source, even were there no history of the use of abstract conversation in narrative, the formal dialogue and the spirit it expresses is sufficient. This type of composition, the antiquity of which rivals that of literature itself, was a factor of real importance in England from 1600 to 1750, and had especial vogue from 1640 to 1700. Moreover, the popularity of the dialogue is only one evidence of what we may term a controversial frame of mind, a liking for the opposition of ideas. The solid prose of the period is full of questions and answers, objections and answers, first personal pronouns; printed versions of trials sold with readiness; there was about the prose a dialogical tone adapted alike to discussion and to pedagogy. This tendency shows itself in every field of thought; in politics, religion, philosophy, and criticism. That it found its way into the novel need surprise no one. The relation of formal dialogue to narration has, however, some history previous to this period. The older chivalric romances, it is true, found little time for academic discussions; though |