{"id":13357,"date":"2022-01-11T12:16:01","date_gmt":"2022-01-11T12:16:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ancient-literature.com\/staging\/?page_id=13357"},"modified":"2022-01-11T12:16:01","modified_gmt":"2022-01-11T12:16:01","slug":"rome_vergil_bucolics","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/ancient-literature.com\/rome_vergil_bucolics\/","title":{"rendered":"Bucolics (Eclogues) – Virgil – Ancient Rome – Classical Literature"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Pastoral Poem, Latin\/Roman, 37\u00a0BCE, 829 lines)<\/h4>\n

Introduction<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Synopsis<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Analysis<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Resources<\/a><\/a><\/center><\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Introduction
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\u201cThe Bucolics\u201d<\/i>\u00a0(Lat:\u00a0\u201cBucolica\u201d<\/i>), also known as \u201cThe Eclogues\u201d<\/i>\u00a0(Lat:\u00a0\u201cEclogae\u201d<\/i>), is a collection of ten pastoral poems by the Roman poet\u00a0Vergil<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>(Vergil<\/a><\/strong>). It was Vergil<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s first major work, published in 37\u00a0BCE. The haunting and enigmatic verses on rustic subjects provided the inspiration for the whole European tradition of pastoral poetry, but their political element and their commentary on the recent turbulent period of Roman history also made them very popular in their own time.<\/p>\n

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Synopsis
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\"eclogues,Eclogue 1: Meliboeus-Tityrus (83 lines).
\nEclogue 2: Alexis (73 lines).
\nEclogue 3: Menalcas-Damoetas-Palaemon (111 lines).
\nEclogue 4: Pollio (63 lines).
\nEclogue 5: Menalcas-Mopsus (90 lines).
\nEclogue 6: Silenus (86 lines).
\nEclogue 7: Meliboeus-Corydon-Thyrsis (70 lines).
\nEclogue 8: Damon-Alphesiboeus (109 lines).
\nEclogue 9: Lycidas-Moeris (67 lines).
\nEclogue 10: Gallus (77 lines).<\/p>\n

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Analysis
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\u201cThe Bucolics\u201d<\/i>\u00a0were nominally written in imitation of the\u00a0\u201cBucolica\u201d<\/i>\u00a0by the Greek poet Theocritus, written almost two hundred years earlier, the title of which can be translated as\u00a0\u201cOn the Care of Cattle\u201d<\/i>, so named for the poetry’s rustic subjects. The ten pieces which make up Vergil<\/a><\/strong>‘s book, however, are each called \u201ceclogues\u201d (an eclogue is literally a “draft” or “selection” or “reckoning”), rather than the \u201cidylls\u201d of Theocritus, and Vergil<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s\u00a0\u201cBucolics\u201d<\/i>\u00a0introduce much more political clamour than Theocritus’ simple country vignettes. They add a strong element of Italian realism to the original Greek model, with real or disguised places and people and contemporary events blended with an idealized Arcadia.<\/p>\n

Although the poems are populated by and large with herdsmen and their imagined conversations and songs in a largely rural settings,\u00a0\u201cThe Bucolics\u201d<\/i>\u00a0also represent a dramatic and mythic interpretation of some of the revolutionary changes that had occurred at Rome during the time of the Second Triumvirate of Lepidus, Anthony and Octavian, the turbulent period between roughly 44 and 38\u00a0BCE, during which Vergil<\/a><\/strong> wrote the poems. The rural characters are shown suffering or embracing revolutionary change, or experiencing happy or unhappy love. Interestingly, they are the only poems in Vergil<\/a><\/strong>‘s work which refer to slaves as leading characters.<\/p>\n

\"ecloguesThe poems are written in strict dactylic hexameter verse, most of them in the form of conversations between characters with names such as “Tityrus” (supposedly representing Vergil<\/a><\/strong> himself), “Meliboeus”, “Menalcas” and “Mopsus”. They were apparently performed with great success on the Roman stage, and their mix of visionary politics and eroticism made Vergil<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0an immediate celebrity, legendary in his own lifetime.<\/p>\n

The fourth eclogue, sub-titled\u00a0\u201cPollio\u201d<\/i>, is perhaps the best known of all. It was written in honour of Octavius (soon to become the Emperor Augustus), and it created and augmented a new political mythology, reaching out to imagine a golden age ushered in by the birth of a boy heralded as a “great increase of Jove”, which some later readers (including the Roman Emperor Constantine I) treated as a kind of Messianic prophecy, similar to the prophetic themes of Isaiah or the Sybilline Oracles. It was largely this eclogue that garnered for Vergil<\/a><\/strong> the reputation of a saint (or even a sorcerer) in the Middle Ages, and it was one reason why Dante chose Vergil<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0as his guide through the underworld of his\u00a0\u201cDivine Comedy\u201d<\/i>.<\/p>\n

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Resources
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