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Theocritean Elements in Virgil's Eclogues

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

R. W. Garson
R. W. Garson
Affiliation:
University of Adelaide
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Extract

Much of the early scholarship on Virgilian borrowings from Theocritus offered mere lists of parallel passages and, where criticism was attempted at all, the Eclogues often attracted such uncomplimentary labels as ‘cento’ or ‘pastiche’. In more recent scholarship the tendency to concentrate on insoluble problems and arithmetical correspondences lingers and, while some critical works of the sixties are characterized by a welcome upsurge in sensitivity, one occasionally suspects that Virgil has had attributed to him concepts which are two millennia ahead of his time. To redress the balance, the following pages adhere to the text of Virgil and aim at being fairly conservative. Despite the volume of literature on the Eclogues, ample scope remains for differing interpretations, for the filling in of details and for a more methodical approach to the specific subject of borrowings from Theocritus.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 21 , Issue 1 , May 1971 , pp. 188 - 203
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1971

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References

page 189 note 1 The reader is taken even further away from the romance that lay behind the original thought by an ironic reference which Theocritus chooses to make to Polyphemus' subsequent encounter with Odysseus (61 ).

page 190 note 1 The epithet refers to the killing of Dirce by Amphion, and also geographically to Thebes, near which Dirce became a fountain.

page 190 note 2 The extravagance of the boast is actually more akin to Id. 20. 19–27 (probably not by Theocritus) than to anything said by Polyphemus.

page 190 note 3 5 lines of introduction, 13 lines of lament, 37 lines of wooing, 13 lines of lament, 5 lines of supposed renunciation.

page 190 note 4 The siesta at noon/Corydon's frenzied activity; the setting of the sun/the blazing of Corydon's passion; town/country; white skin/dark skin; hyacinths/marigolds, etc. The first two contrasts were suggested in general idea by Id. 2. 38–40, of which there is a very close imitation at Ec. 9. 57–8. Rather interestingly, this latter passage involves no contrast at all, as the stillness of nature is used by Lycidas only as a reason for sitting down to sing.

page 192 note 1 The setting of the ninth eclogue is clearly based on that of Theocritus' but the sorrow of the dispossessed and the convulsions of the state are in stark contrast to the pleasant diversions of Simichidas and his companions. Compare Ec. 9. 1 and Id. 7. 21; Ec. 9. 32–6 and Id. 7. 37–41; Ec. 9. 59–60 and Id. 7. 10–11 for close imitations in this poem.

page 193 note 1 Virgil has not only toned down Id. 5. 1–4, but has actually used the idea to help his poem structurally. Damoetas retorts that Damon was withholding the goat which he, Damoetas, had won in a singing match, and when Menalcas doubts whether this were possible, Damoetas proposes the competition which is the main point of the poem. The Greek version has no such neat transition from abuse to song.

page 193 note 2 In his own way Virgil, too, uses strong language: cf. dolebas, / et si non aliqua nocu-isses, mortuus esses and .

page 193 note 3 Cf. Ec. 1. 51–8, where Virgil reproduces many individual details from Id. 7.131–46 and acknowledges his Theocritean legacy by the addition of Hyblaeis (54). But Virgil's tone is, again, different. The Theocritean passage is pure description, bringing a happy poem to a fitting close, while in the first eclogue Menalcas is wistfully alluding to the joys that await Tityrus, but not him. Virgil has thus imbued the passage with intense emotion as well as integrating it into what is essentially a political poem.

page 193 note 4 Cf. Die mihi, Damoeta, cuium pecus? an Meliboei? / Non, uerum Aegonis; nuper mihi tradiait Aegon and . Another very close imitation, at Ec. 9. 23–5 (cf. Id. 3. 3–5), may be explained as follows: the various snatches from Menalcas' poetry are representative of different facets of Virgil's art. Ec. 9. 23–5 symbolizes Virgil still finding his feet, while the second Theccritean echo (cf. Ec. 9. 39–43 and Id. 11. 42–9) shows him as being much more emancipated from his model. The address to Varus (Ec. 9. 27–9) represents the Italian elements as well as the personal and political ones in the Eclogues, while the final quotation from Menalcas' works (Ec. 9. 46–50) blends pastoral and Roman elements together.

page 194 note 1 Cuium occurs in comedy, and it is worth drawing attention also to lines 49–53, which have a comic flavour in language, in Menalcas' deliberate misunderstanding of Damoetas' remarks, and in Palaemon's incredibly opportune arrival. Quin age, si quid habes is actually an echo from a discarded section of Id. 5 concerning the talkativeness of Comatas. At Id. 5. 78 is an expression of impatience, whereas Virgil's echo of it begins Damoetas' answer to Menalcas' charge that he is seeking to avoid the contest.

page 194 note 2 Virgil introduces an interesting complication by making Aegon and Menalcas rivals for Neaera. Menalcas' ac ne me sibi praeferat ilia ueretur shows a rather delightful self-confidence, which may even be a compensation for defeat.

page 194 note 3 The naming of the craftsman at Ec. 3.37 is, however, suggested by Id. 5. 105.

page 194 note 4 e.g. 8. 2–4, but the power of song is illustrated most graphically in Eclogue 9, where Lycidas' and Moeris' utter despondency about their dispossession and the upheaval in the state is dispelled by their loving recollection of Menalcas' poetry.

page 195 note 1 Although Theocritus' sycophantic seventeenth idyll begins , Virgil here plainly harks back to the opening lines of Aratus' Phaenomena: Ironically, the young Virgil could hardly have known that this hint of Stoicism in the Eclogues foreshadowed in part the spirit of his third great work.

page 196 note 1 For contemporary literary allusions in bucolic poetry Virgil had a precedent in Id. 7. 39–41 and 45–8.

page 197 note 1 Ec. 5. 1–19 is much more than a mere fusion of Theocritus and Virgil. Tu maior; tibi me est aequum parere, Menalca (4) could be spoken by one of Socrates' interlocutors, and the decorous tone of the conversation which takes place as the two men are walking along together in such pleasant surroundings is reminiscent of the philosophical dialogue in general. Such an introduction adds great dignity to Virgil's poem, whether it is meant as a tribute to Caesar or not.

page 197 note 2 Formally, Ec. 10 owes more to Id. 1 than does Mopsus' song: cf. Ec. 10. -12 and Id 1 66–9;Ec. 10. 18 and Id. 1. 109; Ec. 10. 19–30 and Id. 1. 77–85. Gallus, like Daphnis, is wasting away through love, and all Nature is in sympathy with him. Virgil's daring manifests itself in putting Gallus, the soldier-poet, into a bucolic setting. The Virgilian poem alone has considerable psychological complexity. The reader follows the stages of Gallus' struggle against the realities of his life, how he tries hard, but vainly, to fit into the dream-like world which Virgil has created for him.

page 198 note 1 The only point at which Mopsus' song echoes Theocritus outside Thyrsis' song is 32–4. Here the construction reflects Idylls 8. 79–80 and 18. 29–31, but the details are different without being very novel.

page 198 note 2 The fact that two of the sources, Idylls 8 and 9, are nowadays generally considered spurious is here irrelevant.

page 198 note 3 Daphnis' words contain a surprise for the reader as well. The two ‘Arcadians’ turn out to be Arcadians only in spirit, worthy disciples of Pan .They are seated by Virgil's own Mincius ! It is not that Virgil is reckless of geography, or that Corydon and Thyrsis are descended from slaves brought from Arcadia, as some have seriously suggested. Virgil has gently misled his readers, who should take the hint and not be too humourless about the rest of the poem.

page 200 note 1 It is quite likely that Damon is not singing in his own person, but it is convenient to call the lover Damon.

page 201 note 1 A little later, however, his mood has changed and he exclaims with bitter irony that she got the husband she deserved (32).

page 201 note 2 Cf. Ec. 1. 59–63, where Virgil gives the reversal of nature theme yet another original twist. Tityrus in fact says that all nature will be topsy-turvy before he forgets Octavian, i.e. he will never forget him. The individual details are Virgil's own, and he has given the passage an appropriately political flavour by referring to Rome's enemies and the boundaries of the Roman Empire. Moreover, the hypothetical, or rather impossible, migrations of Tityrus' lines are immediately matched by the very real ones gloomily foreshadowed by Meliboeus in his reply.

page 201 note 3 The theory that Virgil misunderstood is now, happily, unfashionable. Scholars suggest with rather greater plausibility that the sound of the Greek made Virgil think of the sea.

page 201 note 4 A similar distinction was drawn above between Polyphemus' song in Id. 11 and Corydon's in Ec. 2.

page 202 note 1 It is interesting that Damon's song contains only one obvious verbal reminiscence of Simaetha's lament with which it has so much in common in tone and subject-matter: cf. Ec. 8. 41 ut uidi, ut perii, ut me malus abstulit error and Id. 2. 82 as well as Id. 3. 42 . Virgil's daring linguistic innovation in ut… , ut… , ut… presupposes his readers' acquaintance with the Greek idiom in his models. Also, his hiatus is clearly inspired by the one at the same point in the second Theocritus passage. However, this hiatus together with the preceding heavy elision gives Virgil's line a unique emotional quality. Finally, note how Virgil's line, and especially the introduction of error, acts as a bridge between the preceding romantic passage and the following epic/tragic one.

page 203 note 1 In Damon's refrain Virgil's remodelling of from Idyll I as incipe Maenalios mecum, mea tibia, uersus looks forward especially to Eclogue 10, with its dream-like setting in Arcadia.