THE GEORGICS. UNDOUBTEDLY' the original purpose of didactic poetry, to which kind the Georgics belong, was to embody in a metrical and attractive form the rules and precepts of some art, or the principles of some science, more especially to aid the memory. In other words, the object of the poet was to instruct. The somewhat dry precepts of Hesiod bear this stamp. This object had, however, been somewhat lost sight of even in the later Greek didactic poetry, and the later poet sought to give a higher literary form and a more elegant dress to subjects which might as well be treated in prose, if the object had been merely to instruct. It can hardly be supposed that Virgil intended to give information to anybody who did not possess it before. His object must have been rather to give pleasure by idealizing and ennobling the processes of an art that his readers were already acquainted with, and possibly to encourage the pursuit of the art, so far as an amateur-poetical treatment of it could do so, by making the pursuit fashionable, — not, however, among humble farmers, but among the great proprietors of land. The Romans had become - for probably their earliest greatness was commercial — essentially an agricultural people; that is, their pride, as in England at this day, was in the tilling of fine estates and the management of farming operations. The works of Cato and Varro on farming, the constant references with pride and pleasure to this subject in the works of Cicero and others, show that agriculture, next to war and politics, was the favorite occupation of the well-to-do Roman. It is probable that Virgil or his patron Mæcenas had a fancy also that by a poetical treatment of the art of husbandry the humbler farmers might be encouraged to devote themselves to renewing the waste places of the country, desolated by the civil wars. However this may be, doubtless Virgil selected the topic chiefly because it afforded him an opportunity, within the forms furnished by the Greeks, of stringing his poetical ideas upon a general subject, and one with which he himself was familiar and which his rich patrons would find pleasing from their own associations with the cultivation of land. He speaks of himself as the Roman Hesiod, but his aim is not, like that of the elder poet, to instruct practically, but to interest through association. Hence he in no case gives intelligible directions as to the complete management of land or animals which we can now follow, or which would probably be of much service to the Romans themselves, but picks out here and there topics which can be clothed with poetic sentiment and be made to appeal to those who are familiar with the processes. The Georgics were the poet's second literary effort, being published in 29 B.C., after about seven years had been devoted to the composition, since the completion of the last Eclogue about 37 B.C. The value of the work consists in the fine poetical feeling with which he treats natural phenomena and man's relation to the powers which he can engage in his service, or with which he has to contend for his life and subsistence. BOOK I.- GENERAL PRECEPTS OF AGRICULTURE. ARGUMENT of the work (vv. 1-5). Invocation (vv. 6-42). Of ploughing (vv. 43–49). Climate and soil, and different methods of ploughing and sowing (vv. 50-117). Difficulties of agriculture and their causes, and herein of the reign of Saturn and the growth of the arts (vv. 118–159). Instruments of tillage (vv. 160-175). Other necessary arrangements (vv. 176– 203). Times and seasons and their appropriate works (vv. 204-310). Especially Autumn and Spring (vv. 311-350). Prognostics of the weather (vv. 351-465). Portents accompanying the civil war (vv. 466–497). Prayers for Augustus (vv. 498-514). UID faciat laetas segetes, quo sidere terram QUID vertere, Maecenas ulmisque adiungere vites conveniat, quae cura boum, qui cultus habendo sit pecori, apibus quanta experientia parcis, hinc canere incipiam. Vos, O clarissima mundi lumina, labentem caelo quae ducitis annum ; Liber et alma Ceres, vestro si munere tellus 5 I. 42.] Invocation. 163 munera vestra cano. Chaoniam pingui glandem mutavit arista, et teneram ab radice ferens, Silvane, cupressum ; da facilem cursum atque audacibus adnue coeptis, ΙΟ 15 20 25 30 35 40 |