The Eclogues of Virgil

By Virgil

Publius Vergilius Maro (70-19 B.C.), known in English as Virgil, was perhaps the single greatest poet of the Roman empire—a friend to the emperor Augustus and the beneficiary of wealthy and powerful patrons. Most famous for his epic of the founding of Rome, the Aeneid, he wrote two other collections of poems: the Georgics and the Bucolics, or Eclogues.

The Eclogues were Virgil's first published poems. Ancient sources say that he spent three years composing and revising them at about the age of thirty. Though these poems begin a sequence that continues with the Georgics and culminates in the Aeneid, they are no less elegant in style or less profound in insight than the later, more extensive works. These intricate and highly polished variations on the idea of the pastoral poem, as practiced by earlier Greek poets, mix political, social, historical, artistic, and moral commentary in musical Latin that exerted a profound influence on subsequent Western poetry.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Youcanprint
• Release date: Jun 27, 2017
• ISBN: 9788892672918

Virgil

Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro) was an ancient Roman poet who wrote during the reign of Augustus, the first Roman emperor. In addition to his epic poem Aeneid, Virgil’s Ecolgues (Bucolics) and Georgics are recognized as major works of Latin literature, and have been studied, adapted, imitated, and copied by later poets and scholars. Virgil’s poetry has also had a lasting influence on Western literature, inspiring countless works including Dante’s Divine Comedy, in which Virgil guides Dante through Hell and Purgatory.

Book preview

CONTENTS

ECLOGUE 1. TITYRUS

ECLOGUE 2. ALEXIS

ECLOGUE 3. PALAEMON

ECLOGUE 4. POLLIO

ECLOGUE 5. DAPHNIS

ECLOGUE 6. SILENUS

ECLOGUE 7. MELIBOEUS

ECLOGUE 8. THE SORCERESS

ECLOGUE 9. MOERIS

ECLOGUE 10. GALLUS

The Eclogues of Virgil

Translated By J. W. Mackail

FROM VIRGILS' WORKS, MODERN LIBRARY, NEW YORK 1934, PP. 263-91.

© David De Angelis 2017 [all rights reserved]

ECLOGUE 1. TITYRUS

MELIBOEUS--TITYRUS

M.--Tityrus, thou where thou liest under the covert of spreading beech, broodest on thy slim pipe over the Muse of the woodland: we leave our native borders and pleasant fields; we fly our native land, while thou, Tityrus, at ease in the shade teachest the woods to echo fair Amaryllis.

T.--O Meliboeus, a god brought us this peace: for a god ever will he be to me: his altar a tender lamb from our sheepfolds shall often stain. He granted that my oxen might stray as thou descriest, and myself play what I would on the rustic reed.

M.--I envy not, I, rather I wonder, so is all the countryside being routed out. See, I myself wearily drive forth my she-goats; and this one, Tityrus, I just drag along: for here among the hazel thickets she has borne twins, the hope of the flock, and left them, alas! on the naked flints. Often, had a mind not infatuate been mine, I remember how lightning-scathed oaks presaged this woe of ours. But yet vouchsafe to us, Tityrus, who is this god of thine.

T.--The city they call Rome, O Meliboeus, I fancied in my foolishness like ours here, whither we shepherds are often wont to drive the tender weanlings of the sheep. Thus I knew the likeness of puppies to dogs, of kids to their mothers: thus would I compare great things with small. But she bears her head as high among all other cities as any cypress will do among trailing hedgerow shoots.

M.--And why might nothing less serve thee than seeing Rome?

T.--For freedom: she at last in spite of all turned her face upon a slothful servant, when now the beard was sprinkled with white that fell under the razor: in spite of all she turned her face and came after long delay, since Amaryllis holds us and Galatea has let us go. For I will confess it, while Galatea kept me, there was no hope of freedom, no thrift of savings: though many a