The Eclogues (Penguin Classics)

Rating:
Summary: "Enjoyable and Warm"
Review: In this edition of Virgil's "Eclogues," Guy Lee provides a lively verse translation with a parallel of the original Latin text. Preceding the text, Lee gives a detailed and lengthy introduction, with summaries before each of Virgils' ten eclogues. Notes to the text are furnished in the back, which throw further light upon the poems; their use is highly suggested. The poems themselves are Virgils' first collection, probably published around 38-39 BC. These poems were originally published under the name bucolica (cowherd-songs) but were eventually titled ecolgae (selections) in later English editions. For those who have only read the "Aenied," these pastoral poems will come as a surprise, since the soft devotion to country living and house hold gods praised in the "Eclogues" differs greatly from the proud and martial spirit which underlies his greatest work, the "Aenied." Virgil's diversity as a poet shines through in this work; he mixes the Greek with the Roman and contrasts the ancient with the contemporary and creates a rich blend of sophisticated poetry. These poems are enjoyable and warm--but sometimes obscure if read too quickly--and they should be read by anyone in to classical literature.

Rating:
Summary: Trouble in Paradise
Review: This translation by Dryden is hard to come by. But it is worth it!
Nabokov called Virgil's poetry "insipid," the people in the
circus of Naples, who rose to their feet for a standing ovation,
didn't think so. Perhaps the crowds merely empathized with
Virgil's awkward person, his hacking cough, the sly smirk under a
peasant's heavy brow, his rustic accent. Maybe they felt, that he
was one of their own. Little does his early work indicate to which
length of seemingly servile adulation Virgil eventually would have to
go. Later ages would accuse Virgil of a subservient mentality -
unjustly perhaps.

The Roman rich were very rich, the Roman
poor very poor; in fact poverty decorated the mantelpieces of the
upper crust - quite literally: we have unearthed many statuettes of
that period. They portray low life figures in every realistic detail,
warts and all - feisty slave girls, old fishmongers, a toothless
washerwomen dozing off her liquor. Apparently such decorations became
extremely popular items for a wealthy house. The thinly spread
middle-class was trapped in a social seesaw situation and the
institution of slavery would make it even more difficult to bridge the
widening gulf between the classes.

In terms of income,
Virgil came from a rural middle-class background; on her way to the
fields, his mother had given birth in the ditches. His parent's
single-minded aim, which is so typical for people of the struggling
middle-class, was to provide their son with the best education money
could buy, in order to make it easier for him to climb the social
ladder. There was an encouraging example: from a small town a
banker's son had ascended to the throne of an empire. But times
could be tough. Virgil himself had been evicted from his father's
farm because the state confiscated land to provide for the army's
veterans.

When a modern reader thinks of idyllic poetry he
automatically associates something nostalgic and sentimental with it,
a hypocritical invocation of good old times and conservative
values. But Virgil had it not in him to be sentimental. So in his very
first poem Virgil introduces an evicted farmer who lost his homestead
to a retired war-veteran. He has a last afternoon to visit his former
neighbor and friend, they talk and there is no happy ending to this
story: all what is left is a last look at the smoking chimneys of
distant cottage-roofs which slowly drown in the lengthening
shadows. And this is sheer magic. This last image suggests something
enduring. Farmers pass, but farming will be here for ever; suddenly
something eternal, a platonic archetype seems to cast light onto the
fragility of our world. It doesn't make it any easier for the
dispossessed emigrant, but the world is essentially good.


Between a couple of cuter pieces about love among and between the
sexes, especially 3 poems stand out. The enigmatic 4th Eclogue on the
birth of his patron's child would earn Virgil the status of a
prophet. In the middle ages some considered him to be a saint (others
a sorcerer). Eclogue 6 and 10 celebrate important friendships in
Virgil's life, but curiously mix the jocular with the
tragic. Especially for the 10th it would be important to know when
exactly it was written, because the fate of his friend Gallus became a
turning point in Virgil's work.

The "Eclogues"
are the only poems in Virgil's work, which refer to slaves as
leading characters. Virgil's complete silence on the subject in
his mature work, especially the "Georgics" which seem
especially suited to speak of forced labor, certainly means something,
but we don't know exactly what. Had he learned to resent the
institution, and if yes on what grounds? Did he see it economically
cutting into the franchise of the middle-class? Had he humanitarian
reservations? Or had it become one of the unmentionables in polite
society? We don't know. But we do know, there was no such thing as
a lobby for the abolition of slavery. The days of Spartacus had passed
for good.