561

559-566. While Virgil has been writing the Georgics Augustus is fighting for his country in the East. Haec super arvorum cultu pecorumque canebam, et super arboribus, Caesar dum magnus ad altum fulminat Euphraten bello, victorque volentes per populos dat iura, viamque affectat Olympo. illo Virgilium me tempore dulcis alebat Parthenope, studiis florentem ignobilis otî: carmina qui lusi pastorum, audaxque iuventa, Tityre, te patulae cecini sub tegmine fagi.

565

NOTES

GEORGIC I

1-5

Virgil begins by describing the subjects of the four Georgics. Agriculture, the care of fruit trees and vines, of horses and cattle, and lastly bee-keeping. He goes on to invoke all the Gods who are guardians of the country and its occupations, the Sun and Moon who bring the seasons, Bacchus and Ceres, also the lesser deities of field and forest, the Fauns, Dryads and Silvanus, also Neptune, the creator of the horse, Pan the tender of sheep, Minerva who gave man the olive and so on. The invocation of these heavenly Powers who care for the husbandman is natural and beautiful. He then proceeds to invoke the aid of the Emperor, not yet a God but destined to become one.

I. quid...segetes, 'what makes the corn-fields glad.' The Latin metaphor should be preserved. It was borrowed by Virgil from the speech of the country-folk: laetas segetes etiam rustici dicunt (Cic. De Or. III, 155). As Sidgwick says, "This opening phrase strikes the key-note of the poem." To Virgil the luxuriant fields have a joy of their own. "The poet had in an unusual degree the true Italian feeling that there is something mysterious or divine in all life, even in that of plants-a feeling at the root of the religion of the early Italians" (Dr W. Warde Fowler). quo sidere, 'at the rising of what constellation.'

2. Maecenas, the prime-minister of Augustus who was both patron and friend of Virgil and Horace.

4. pecori, apibus. Note the hiatus. Datives of the object or work contemplated.

5. hinc, 'from this point of time,' 'I will now essay.'

71-83

71. alternis, 'every other year,' abl. plur. neut. of alternus used as an adverb. Note the emphatic position of the word. idem...patiere, moreover, you will allow your reaped fallows to rest.' The meaning of novales is strained, for the fields were not fallow till they had ceased to grow crops; the word is used proleptically.

76. silvam sonantem, 'the rustling haulm,' i.e. the dry stalks of the gathered beans and peas. Silva seems a gardener's term for the luxurant stems of plants, as at G. 1, 152, and IV, 273.

77. urit, 'exhausts,' takes the substance out of, as does fire

79-81. Note the position of arida and effetos and also C.'s rendering, 'Yet rotation will lighten the strain: only think of the dried-up soil and do not be afraid to give it its fill of rich manure-think of the exhausted field,' etc.

81. cinerem, 'wood-ashes,' used as a top-dressing.

83. The soil is not 'thankless' in its return as when left fallow.

118-146

118-146. This passage is a summary of man's progress in the arts, as described in the end of Lucretius' fifth book. But the idea of a benevolent purpose for which Providence has imposed toil on man is Virgil's own. The ethic of the passage is thoroughly Virgilian, and is distinctive of the Georgics as a poem.

118. nec...nihil, like haud facilem in 1. 122, means the opposite of 'harmless' or 'easy.' Thus in English, 'no small' is stronger than 'great.'

119. improbus, 'tormenting,' 'pestilent.' As probus implies moderation, especially in respect for others' rights, so improbus means 'unscrupulous,' 'rapacious,' and is even applied to things as at l. 146. Cf. Martial XII, 18 ingenti fruor improboque somno, of a 'huge' prolonged sleep. The epithet, 'the pestilent goose,' expressing the farmer's irritation, is an instance of the playfulness which is characteristic of the Georgics. So at 1. 182 V. speaks of the 'tiny mouse building a mansion and a granary underground' and of the 'ant fearing an old age of poverty': at 1. 160 he speaks of the husbandman's tools as his 'weapons' in a hand-to-hand fight with Nature (ll. 104-5). See Sidgwick, vol. 1, p. 39.

120. Strymoniae, from the river Strymon in Macedon, where cranes abounded; often mentioned in Greek poets. This is called 'a literary epithet.' It has no descriptive force. It makes the poetry of a thing consist in its associations more than in the thing itself, and is therefore more or less artificial in point of style. The Augustan poets are fond of such epithets. Thus we have 'Paphian myrtle' at II, 64; 'Chaonian acorns' at 1. 8; 'Cecropian thyme' at IV, 177, where see note.

121. ipse added to the name of a god seems to express dignity, 'the great Father himself,' as well as purpose and personal intervention. In the Georgics, Virgil generally uses the term 'Pater,' to denote the supreme spiritual Power.

122. per artem, 'by system,' on a scientific method. 123. corda, in older Latin 'the wits,' 'the intellect.' 125. ante Iovem, in the Saturnian or 'Golden Age,' when Saturn, the father of Jupiter, reigned in Latium.

126. 'Even to set a mark on the land or divide it with a boundary-line was a thing unlawful,' C. The Romans generally divided land into rectangular sections, the corners of which were marked by boundary-stones. Limes is often used in the latter sense. Cf. Aen. XII, 898.

127. in medium, 'for the common stock'; ipsa, 'of her own accord.'

129. serpentibus...atris. Dr W. Fowler remarks that Virgil uses ater to convey a sense of ghastliness or dreadfulness, rather than simply the meaning 'black' (Death of Turnus, pp. 78, 92). 'Black' has similar associations in English.

131. Honey was believed to fall on the leaves from heaven in the form of dew. See IV, I. removit, 'took away' (see 1. 135). Virgil ignores the legend of fire brought down from heaven in a stem of fennel by Prometheus. This jarred with his own standpoint; he leaves fire to be discovered by human ingenuity.

133-4. Notice the force of extunderet, 'might hammer out.' paulatim, emphatic by position.

138. Pleiadas. The short final syllable is lengthened at times, but only in the first syllable of the foot, that on which the ictus falls, and especially before a pause in the verse. C. considers h to have the force of a consonant. The daughter of Lycaon, Callisto, was loved by Jupiter, but changed by Juno into a bear (arctos in Greek), and transformed by Jupiter into the Constellation of the Great Bear or the Plough.

142. alta, the bottom,' which a casting-net requires to reach. 143. rigor ferri, 'stubborn iron.' Probably also the abstract expression is preferred to the concrete, in order to intensify the stern associations of the sword. argutus, participle of arguo (from a root arg, meaning 'white' in Greek; seen in the Latin argentum 'the white or bright metal'). Arguo means first to 'make a thing bright' then to 'make evident' or 'prove'; so with clarus, 'bright or shining,' and de-claro, 'to make evident' to the mind, the English 'clear' being also used in this double sense. Kennedy in his note on Ecl. vII, 1 says: "The adjective is used of things which convey a clear perception and has many shades of meaning (fine, minute, sharp, shrewd-speaking, melodious, loud, shrill, etc.)." Thus at l. 294 it is used of the ringing sound of the weaver's comb, at 377 of the swallow, at Ecl. vII of the rustling oaks, here of the 'shrill' saw, also by other writers of a 'pungent' smell or taste, by Cicero in the sense acute,' 'witty.'

146. improbus, 'relentless': see note on 1. 119. omnia, 'all obstacles.' 'Want that grinds (harries) amid hardship.' Cf.

M. V.

3

Caesar cum legionem ab hostibus urgeri vidisset, B. G. 11, 26; urgent Teucer te, te Sthenelus, Hor. C. 1, 15. 23.

147-168

148. iam...deficerent, 'began to fail.' silvae, probably dat. of indirect object (C. takes it as genitive), referring to the famous oak-forest of Dodona in Epirus, regarded as the first dwelling of the human race.

150. Soon however the corn-crop too acquired troubles of its own,' i.e. troubles for the farmer: ut is explanatory. frumenta, plur., is used specially in the sense of 'standing grain.' 151. segnis carduus, 'the lazy thistle.' Transference of epithet. See n. on IV, 50.

152. silva used to denote the vigour of the weed-crop: 'a prickly jungle,' C.

154. dominantur, 'lord it among the glistening corn': the verb at once calls up such weeds towering above the wheat. s. avenae, 'wild oats'; oats were not cultivated by Romans or Greeks.

155. quod, used especially before si or nisi to mark the connection with what precedes. 'So unless.'

156. Of the darkened field.' Notice C.'s rendering, 'unless your hook is ever ready to exterminate weeds, your shout to scare away birds,' etc., which brings out the emphasis on the ablatives rastris, sonitu, falce, votis, by making them subjects in each clause.

158. heu, poor man,' C.

160. duris, 'sturdy.' arma, 'weapons.' By many such touches V. treats the husbandman's labour as a warfare: the poet knew well what adverse forces he has to combat, and the hardness of his life. Cf. imperat arvis, 11. 99 and 145–6.

162. primum includes vomis.

163. tarda volventia, the adj. qualifies the present participle with adverbial force. V. uses many such transitive verbs as volvo intransitively, e.g. sisto at l. 479, addo, probably, at 513, Aen. VII, 27 venti posuere, 'the winds fell.' matris. Demeter goddess of agriculture, identified with Ceres, was worshipped at Eleusis in Attica.

164. iniquo, 'cruel,' lit. 'immoderate.' tribulum, ‘a threshing-sledge,' a plank studded with sharp stones or iron, dragged by cattle over the corn. trahea, a similar instrument on wheels. See K. Terms of Husbandry.

165. Celeus, son of Triptolemus, who invented the plough. virgea supellex, 'baskets,' 'hurdles,' etc.

166. mystica v. The winnowing-fan, entitled 'mystic'