Customer Reviews

The Eclogues: Dual Language Edition (Penguin Classics) (Latin and English Edition)

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No reading of the Eclogues is complete without a reading of the Idylls of Theocritus.

Having said that, and having (re-)read that, I find myself commenting on the other review, which was excellent (though it was written for a different edition). I disagree that Virgil "slavishly imitated" Theocritus. My impression is that the Eclogues are more of an artful (and extensive) adaptation. The fear of plagiarism and insistence on originality is a modern phenomenon. Ancient literature depended upon the recasting of existing works to suit the poet's purpose and taste. Appropriation provided a cultural continuum that preserved and transmitted the beauty, values, and ideas of one's predecessors. In Virgil's case, poetic license would not have referred to a deviation from form or tradition as it does today; it would have meant knowing the rules and biding by them.

If anything was slavishly imitated by Virgil, it would have been the characters created by Theocritus. Daphnis, Thyrsis, Amaryllis, Tityrus, Corydon, Damoetas and Menalcas all make somewhat more than cameo appearances in the Eclogues. They have in fact re-emerged as Virgil's main cast of characters. In some cases they appear as the poet himself!

The Idylls as an art form only superficially affected Virgil. Of course he adapted the singing contests to his own settings and themes. The prizes still included cups, heifers, girls, banes and boons. While the Idylls were a collection of poems written at various times and for various purposes, the Eclogues appear to be (and there is ample evidence to support this) composed as a coherent set. They are the equivalent of a modern-day popular music album. Cohesive devices link one poem to another; matching numbers of lines provide internal balance; there is an introduction and a conclusion.

Thank you, Penguin, for publishing this slender volume which is small enough to tuck into my carryon whenever I travel to Italy; for Vergil's "Eclogues," written in the first century BC, celebrate the essence of the Italian landscape. Vergil's susurrant pines and splashing fountains; his humming bees and keening doves; his savours of crushed garlic and thyme are omnipresent, as any walk in Rome, Ostia Antica, or Hadrian's Villa on a summer's day will reveal. Reading Vergil's "Eclogues" makes one almost forget about the incessant din of the Roman traffic.

So that readers of Latin can fully appreciate these ten short poems, Penguin has set Vergil's Latin text on the left page and and Guy Lee's translation on the right page. The translator has essayed to approximate the Latin hexameter by using English Alexandrine meter. Translation is a matter of taste. I am not certain that one approaching these poems from English with no knowledge of Latin will get a sense of "what Vergil was really like" from the translator's rendition, which is nevertheless punctilious. Furthermore, since the poems are not annotated, the words "lucerne" (cytisus) and "sappy vervain" (verbenas. . . pinguis) may send non-Latin readers rushing to a dictionary.

Vergil may be regarded as 'untranslatable' in that one must read the "Eclogues" in Latin to appreciate the beauty of these poems. For example "The very pines,/ the very springs, these very orchards called to you/" is accurate, but it fails to catch Vergil's brilliant combined sibilance, consonance, and alliteration that imitates these sounds of nature themselves: "ipsae te Tityre, pinus/, ipsi te fontes, ipsa haec arbusta vocabant." Nor does "[as ever feeding Hybla bees]/ will often whisper you persuasively to sleep/" capture Virgil's drowsy combination of L's and S's in ". . . saepe levi somnum suadebit inire susurro." But again, one has to read these poems, which are unfortunately sometimes neglected in favour of the "Aeneid," in Latin to appreciate their stunning beauty.

Thanks to Penguin, readers of Latin, if not completely satisfied with the English, can refer to the magnificent original.

This is a pretty book. Mine was published in 1960 by heritage press, but since it was in a slipcase, it is like new. What i really enjoy is the pictures, illustrated by Vertes. They are like water colors.This must have cost a lot to begin with because the paper is a thick stock paper

This edition of Vergil's ECLOGUES comes in Cambridge University Press' "Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics" series, and is a typical entry. The Eclogues were Virgil's first literary creation, ten pastoral poems that are often a slavish imitation of the bucolic poetry written by Theocritus, but occasionally show striking originality. The fourth eclogue, a foretelling of a golden age brought in by the birth of a miraculous child, is historically significant as it was appreciated by some in the early Church.

The Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics series combines the text with an introduction and extensive commentary. Here these materials are prepared by Robert Coleman, a fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. The introduction consists of four sections: "The pastoral before Vergil", "The chronology and arrangement of the Eclogues", "Vergil's achievement as a pastoral poet", and "Text, Note on orthography". These are interesting, but as with the introductions of so many works in this series, one feels that the author already expects you to know all about the work in question already. The commentary takes up 227 pages of this 303-page work, and deals many with explicating the historical allusions and poetic devices of the Eclogues. Regrettably, the commentary does not touch much on Virgil's use of archaic Latin diction, for it would be interesting to explore how much earlier these forms had passed from colloquial speech.

If you are interested in the literary themes, this is a good edition to have. Those who would rather read the book out of linguistic interest (like this student of comparative Indo-European linguistics) might rather go with the Oxford Classical Text edition.

Yes but I ask yet again of a book on Amazon.com: what language is it in? I find that this is a problem right across Amazon.com with both regular books and Kindle books. Whether it's Chaucer or Virgil it is never made clear what language a work that was written in another language is being presented in. For example this book is described as being in English (see above). Is it? Does it contain the original Latin text. Some of the reviewers seem to suggest it is but who knows? I have spent many hours trying to guess from trawling through reviews etc..whether what I'm looking at is an original text or a translation. It's important to know this - especially for authors like Virgil. Can someone at Amazon take this on board please?