Customer Reviews

Eclogues. Georgics. Aeneid: Books 1-6 (Loeb Classical Library)

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Just for those who have never seen a Loeb-it has the original Latin (or Greek) on one side with the translation on the following page. The Loeb series are known for their excellent translations and are vital to any researcher or historian who wants to return to the orginal for their primary source. Virgil's Georgics alone make this book a necessity (the Georgics used to be standard reading before and after the revolution in universities) and the Aeneid provides an excellent balance to the Eclouges and the Georgics. Virgil's writings are fairly simple yet convey both the message and the image of what he wishes to get across to the reader. The Loeb series are a bit more pricey than the Penguin translations but the added luxury of the Latin text make this series indispensable to the student or reseacher of Rome or the Latin language.

As a student preparing for the "AP Latin: Vergil" exam largely on my own, I can say from experience that this book is a great tool for students, regardless of the intensity at which you are studying Vergil.

Unlike the Mandelbaum or Fitzgerald translations, the Loeb is very literal, which helped me to see how the words fit together syntactically. A page of Latin text faces its translation, and it is easy to look back and forth to understand the translation. Because there are no vocabulary words or footnotes, the Loeb cannot be used alone by a student first learning Vergil. However, used in conjunction with the Boyd or Pharr edition of the Aeneid, it is a wonderful help.

Whether to help with translation or to study for tests, I highly recommend the Loeb. Because the Latin is on a page by itself with the English translation facing it, students can translate without any help whenever they are ready, making the Loeb a uniquely flexible aid to studying Vergil.

Roman society was enamoured of Greek culture -- many of the best 'Roman' things were Greek; the major gods were derivative of the Greek pantheon; philosophy, literature, science, political ideals, architecture -- all this was adopted from the Greeks. It makes sense that, at the point of their ascendancy in the world, they would long for an epic history similar to the Homeric legends; the Iliad and the Odyssey, written some 500 years after the actual events they depict, tell of the heroism of the Greeks in their battle against Troy (Ilium). The Aeneid, written by Vergil 700 years after Homer, at the commission of Augustus (himself in the process of consolidating his authority over Rome), turns the heroic victory of the much-admired Greeks on its head by postulating a survivor from Troy, Aeneas, who undergoes as journey akin to the Odyssey, even further afield.

Vergil constructs Aeneas, a very minor character in the Iliad, as the princely survivor and pilgrim from Troy, on a journey through the Mediterranean in search of a new home. According to Fitzgerald, who wrote a brief postscript to the poem, Vergil created a Homeric hero set in a Homeric age, purposefully following the Iliad and Odyssey as if they were formula, in the way that many a Hollywood director follows the formulaic pattern of past successful films. Vergil did not create the Trojan legend of Roman origins, but his poem solidified the notion in popular and scholarly sentiment.

Vergil sets the seeds for future animosity between Carthage and Rome in the Aeneid, too -- the curse of queen Dido on the descendants of Aeneas of never-ending strife played into then-recent recollections of war in the Roman mind. Books I through VI are much more studied than VII through XII, but the whole of the Aeneid is a spectacular tale.

True to the Loeb translations generally, this offers the Latin text on one page and an English translation on the facing page; this translation is done by G.P. Goold, working from H.R. Fairclough's standard edition (which is true also for the second half of the Aeneid, in the second volume of the Loeb printing). The translations are careful and work more at being faithful to the text in literal without being choppy manner; poetic license (which can often wreak havoc on a comparison of original language to translation analyses) is kept to a minimum, but not entirely absent here.

Vergil died before he could complete the story. He wished it to be burned; fortunately, Augustus had other ideas. Still, there are incomplete lines and thoughts, and occasional conflicts in the storyline that one assumes might have been worked out in the end, had more editing time been available. Despite these, the Aeneid remains a masterpiece, and the Loeb editions will remain standards for academic scholarship for some time to come.

Don't get me wrong, the translation is fine, but if you're looking for a verse translation of the Eclogues, the Georgics, or the Aeneid, look elsewhere. Unfortunately, I had to purchase the item without knowing whether it was verse or prose, since none of the reviews indicates that it is, in fact, prose. I suppose I can't have too much Virgil, but it's nice to know ahead of time, right? Well, now all the other people in the world looking for a verse translation of Virgil's works (all twenty of them, right?) will know that this isn't what they want.

This new edition fulfils a longstanding need. The text is rightly updated, and the translation is modern. The explanatory notes are a useful feature.

Classics students depended on the older edition for its convenience and assistance (I used it myself nearly 40 years ago), but had to go to other editions for more scholarly purposes. This has now been remedied.

I am a Latin student and this book is really great for using to translate. The original Latin text is on the left-hand page, while the corresponding English translation is on the right-hand page. The translation is direct and literal for the most part, so it's very easy to identify where each piece of the translation came from in the Latin. It's well worth the higher price and it looks really nice too!