The Eclogues of Virgil: A Bilingual Edition (edition 2000)

by Virgil, David Ferry (Translator)

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dirkjohnson's review

Virgil's Eclogues are the second and most influential step in the establishment of the pastoral mode in European and European colonial poetry (the first were some of Theocritus' Idylls). One is of course entitled to an opinion, but one should be aware that one's opinion of Virgil's poetry really doesn't matter; it certainly doesn't have any bearing upon the quality or influence of his poetry. Personally, I prefer many of the Ancient Greeks to any of the Romans. I also frequently feel that Virgil receives too much attention relative to the Greeks. There are many reasons for this, many of them historical. I'm not trying to change things with regard to who is more popular.

Virgil was among the greatest of all poets who have ever lived. His Eclogues are perfect gems of the genre, strung on a single necklace. I'll go so far as to say that no poet has ever been greater than Virgil, not even Homer (pretending for the moment that Homer was a single person). To me, both the Odyssey and the Iliad are far superior to the Aeneid. Even this isn't a fair comparison because I've read Homer in Greek but not Virgil in Latin. Yet I must say that Homer didn't write the equivalent of Virgil's Eclogues nor of his Georgics, so Virgil has greater breadth. And, even though I prefer the Idylls of Theocritus to the Eclogues of Virgil, Virgil's Eclogues are more completely of the genre toward which Theocritus only pointed, and as such they are a more finished work of art as a whole than the Idylls, which aren't all written in the same genre. It's true that Virgil copied Theocritus, but also true that Theocritus didn't write an enduring epic poem, or any epic poem as far as we know.

Seeing ratings below three for any poetry of Virgil's (since it's Virgil's poems that gets rated in aggregate, not any particular translation or edition) only makes me wonder how someone so ignorant could even end up with a LibraryThing account in the first place. If you don't like Virgil, that's fine. There's no question but that you're entitled to your own likes and dislikes. But please don't presume to rate Virgil or any other truly great poet unless you've read him or her very deeply. If you still think he sucks after reading him deeply in Latin, please do rate him low. And, in that case, please let me know why you think so. But even then it's only one opinion against the judgment of 2,000 years of readers and scholars.

On the other hand, possibly those rating Virgil's poetry on the low end of the scale are actually rating the translation or the edition that they read. Such a rating is completely valid, but, unfortunately, such a rating has no meaning whatsoever on LibraryThing.

I wonder if there might be a way to create a composite rating for an author with separate ratings for each work and individual editions of each work. This would be something I might find truly useful. But it's probably difficult to do and most people likely don't care anyway.

Regarding the edition of the Eclogues at hand, the one translated by David Ferry and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, I will only say that the translation is very, very good. Ferry has clearly read his Virgil carefully and draws over into English some of Virgil's excellences, which is to say that Ferry is a good poet himself. Even though I haven't studied Latin formally, I like having the Latin en face since so much of Latin is transparent to even an ignorant one such as I am. (

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dirkjohnson | Aug 27, 2008 |

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2016 (very brief review can be found at the link - which is a LibraryThing page)
https://www.librarything.com/topic/226898#5820620

dchaikin | Jun 21, 2020 |

"[So much] has my relish for poetry deserted me that at present I cannot read Virgil with pleasure." - Thomas Jefferson to John Daly Burk, 21 Jun. 1801 [PTJ 34:400-401]

"your Latin & Greek should be kept up assiduously by reading at spare hours: and, discontinuing the desultory reading of the schools. I would advise you to undertake a regular course of history & poetry in both languages ... in Latin read Livy, Caesar, Sallust Tacitus, Cicero’s Philosophies, and some of his Orations, in prose; and Virgil, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Horace, Terence & Juvenal for poetry." - Thomas Jefferson to Francis Eppes, 6 Oct. 1820

ThomasJefferson | Jul 15, 2014 |

These poems provide the foundation for a definition of pastoral. Virgil's book contains ten pieces, each called not an idyll but an eclogue, populated by and large with herdsmen imagined conversing and singing in largely rural settings, whether suffering or embracing revolutionary change or happy or unhappy love. They are inviting and easy to like, both attractive and intelligent. This was from early in Virgil's career and he is already an accomplished poet. The eclogues, written under the patronage of Maecenas, are called the Bucolics or country poems even though they are really highly civilized set pieces. Like much of Roman literature they look back to Greek examples, in this case that of Theocritus, the Greek poet of the third century B.C.
They highlight individual characters like Meliboeus and Tityrus in Eclogue 1. Here Virgil uses the two herdsmen to convey issues of power and its opposite. In Eclogue 2 Corydon and Alexis demonstrate the power of passion. Corydon coaxes Alexis saying, "O come and live with me in the countryside among the humble farms." (p 13) Virgil is able to consider the result of erotic passion with some detachment through his use of homosexual passion in this country setting. Perhaps the best known of the Eclogues is number four which foretells of a son to be born to Antony and Octavia. Alas this event was not fated to happen and the birth prophesied would later be interpreted as one of a completely different boy, one who would have a career that outlived both the poet Virgil and Rome's empire if not her culture.
Through the eclogues as a whole there is the exploration of the idea of the nature of the pastoral, its innocence and seeming edenic being in comparison with the urban life of Virgil and most of his audience. In David Ferry's beautiful translation these verses come alive in a contemporary idiom. As Michael Dirda has said, this is a "volume to buy, read , and treasure." (

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