eclogues 1.1–10

So, this one isn't off the random generator; it's just my homework. I had fun with the iambic pentameter last time, so I thought I'd go for more of the same.

The speakers' names are Tityrus and Meliboeus.[1]

Vergil, Eclogues 1.1–10

{M.} Tityre, tu patulae recubans sub tegmine fagi
silvestrem tenui Musam meditaris avena;
nos patriae finis et dulcia linquimus arva.
nos patriam fugimus; tu, Tityre, lentus in umbra
formosam resonare doces Amaryllida silvas.
{T.} O Meliboee, deus nobis haec otia fecit.
namque erit ille mihi semper deus, illius aram
saepe tener nostris ab ovilibus imbuet agnus.
ille meas errare boves, ut cernis, et ipsum
ludere quae vellem calamo permisit agresti.

[M.] Tityrus, reclining under the cov'ring
of an open beech tree, you reflect on
the sylvan muse, holding your pipe. But I
forsake the border of my fatherland
and my sweet fields. Yes, I flee my father-
land; you, Tityrus, lingering in the
shade teach the woods to resonate with the
name of the beautiful Amaryllis.
[T.] Meliboeus, a god has made this
peace for us. And since he will be always
my god, a tender lamb from my sheepfolds
often stains his altar. He permits cows
to graze, as you see, and me to play what-
ever I wish on my rustic reed-pipe.

I am reasonably confident in the pentameter-ness of this. I am less than confident in its iambic-ness. But whatever; it sounds good.

The Eclogues (also/originally called the Bucolics) are fun from a reception standpoint, because they are largely responsible for Vergil's medieval reputation as vates, poet-prophet. They were commonly read in a Christian light, as if Vergil were foretelling the coming of Jesus (who, by all accounts, was born over a decade after Vergil died).

Honestly, I'd always presumed that that reading was a little silly. To be fair, there's a 72,000 medieval French poem that reinterprets Ovid's Metamorphoses as Christian allegory, and that one is absolutely bonkers. I really just assumed that the Christian prophetic reading of the Eclogues was similarly out there. It honestly isn't thought; I was kind of amazed by how well Vergil's poem works with later Christian idiom. If you're loooking for it, there's certainly something to find.

  1. Their names look the way they do in the text because Latin nouns have what are called cases, which basically means that the endings change based on the noun's grammatical role in the clause. In this passage, the names are in the vocative, the case of direct address.^