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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2016
As evening falls at the end of the Eclogues we come out of the shade of the pastoral world, a shade harmful to crops (Ecl. 10.76) and ‘rise’ (Ecl. 10.75 surgamus) with the poet to the higher subject matter of a didactic poem; the reader, instead of eavesdropping on the self-enclosed world of fictional shepherds singing to each other, is now the addressee of instructions by the poet that aim at results in the world outside the poem. We remain in the countryside, but now as the setting not for the leisurely pastimes of musical shepherds, but for the laborious annual round of the farmer. As in the Eclogues the countryside is at the mercy of individuals and events in the larger world; as in Eclogue 1 that dependence is soon focused on the great man in Rome, now named as (Octavian) Caesar, whose prospective divinity is framed in grandiosely cosmic terms, the reward for a heroism that far outreaches the simple benefaction for which the iuuenis of Eclogue 1 is magnified as a god by Tityrus. Octavian enters the Georgics from a world of epic journeying and struggle, to whose literal presence we are intermittently recalled from our work on the land, but which is also figuratively present within the world of the farmer, who has his own paths to follow and battles to fight. The poem’s final image of Octavian ‘thundering’ in battle in the distant east (4.560–2) is a suitable advertisement of the full-dress epic on Octavian’s legendary ancestor that is to follow.
1 On the Georgics’ multi-levelled construction of its addressees see Schiesaro, A., ‘Il destinatario discreto. Funzioni didascaliche e progetto culturale nelle Georgiche’, in Schiesaro, A. et al. (eds.), Mega Nepios. The Addressee in Didactic Epic (= MD 31 [1993] 129-47)Google Scholar.
2 At the end of the Aeneid Aeneas will also ‘fulminate’ (12.654, 922–3). On Virgil’s sense of his own poetic career see ch. I n. 1. On Virgil’s reuse of material from the Georgics in the Aeneid see Briggs (1980).
3 In general see Toohey (1996); Dalzell, A., The Criticism of Didactic Poetry: Essays on Lucretius, Virgil, and Ovid (Toronto, Buffalo and London, 1996)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pöhlmann, E., ‘Charakteristika des römischen Lehrgedichts’, ANRW 13 (1973), 813–901 Google Scholar; Effe, B., Dichtung und Uhre: Untersuchungen zur Typologie des antiken Lehrgedichts, (Munich 1977)Google Scholar.
4 The position is clearly stated by Otis (1964), 144–8, although Wilkinson (1969), 3–4 still feels the need to refute the practical purpose. On Virgil’s technical accuracy see Spurr, M. S., ‘Agriculture and the Georgics ,’ in McAuslan, and Walcot, (1990), 69–93 Google Scholar; Wilkinson (1969), 329; on Roman farming in general see White, K. D., Roman Farming, (London 1970)Google Scholar.
5 For brief overviews see Wilkinson (1969), 56–65; Kromer, G., ‘The didactic tradition in Vergil’s Georgics ’, in Boyle, (1979), 7–21 Google Scholar; for full discussion of Virgil’s use of the didactic models see Farrell (1991).
6 Nicander’s fragments do not encourage the idea that he was a major source for the Georgics (see Farrell [1991], 208 n. 5); book 4 may owe something to Nicander’s lost Melissourgika on bee keeping (Farrell [1991], 239 n. 67).
7 The Georgics is full of aitia, mythological or other explanations of the origins of things: Schechter, S., ‘The aition and Virgil’s Georgics ,’ TAPA 105 (1975), 347-91Google Scholar.
8 On the implications of this claim see Farrell (1991), ch. 2.
9 The concentration of Hesiodic material in the first book led J. Bayet to the hypothesis of a first, Hesiodic, version of the Georgics, later expanded: ‘Les premières Géorgiques de Virgile (39-37 av. J.C.)’, Rev. Phil. 4 (1930), 128–50, 221–47, an analytical approach now generally rejected. On Virgil’s use of Hesiod see Penna, A. La, ‘Esiodo nella cultura e nella poesia di Virgilio’, in Hésiode et son influence (Entret. Hardt 7) (Geneva, 1962), 213-70, at 225–47Google Scholar on the Georgics.
10 On the ‘Theodicy’ see Wilkinson (1969), 134^5; Putnam (1979), 32–6; Ross (1987), 79–82; Altevogt, H., ‘Labor improbas’: eine Vergilstudie (Münster, 1952)Google Scholar; Drexler, H., ‘Zu Verg., Georg. 1.118-159’, RhM 110 (1967), 165-74Google Scholar; Stenle, E. M., ‘Virgil’s Georgics: the threat of sloth’, TAPA 104 (1974), 347-69Google Scholar.
11 Sellar (1877), 199. Lucretius in the Georgics: Sellar (1877), ch. 6; Bailey, C., ‘Virgil and Lucretius’, PCA 28 (1931), 21–39 Google Scholar; Paratore, E., ‘Spunti lucreziani nelle Georgiche ’, A&R 20 (1939), 177–202 Google Scholar; Farrington, B., ‘Polemical allusions to the De Rerum Natura of Lucretius in the works of Vergil’, in Varcl, L. and Willetts, R. F. (eds.), Geras. Studies presented to G. Thomson (Prague, 1963), 87–94 Google Scholar; Klingner (1967), index s.v. ‘Lucrez’; Liebeschuetz, W., ‘The cycle of growth and decay in Lucretius and Virgil’, PKS 7 (1967/68), 30–40 Google Scholar; Nethercut, W. R., ‘Vergil’s De rerum natura ,’ Ramus 2 (1973), 41–52 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hardie (1986), 158–67; Farrell (1991), ch. 5; Freudenburg, K., ‘Lucretius, Vergil and the causa morbi ,’ Vergilius 33 (1987), 59–74 Google Scholar.
12 Virgil alludes to a piece of Empedoclean physiology in airing the possibility that he may be unable to aspire to the heights of scientific didactic at 2.483-4 (see comms. ad. loc). On the possibility of Empedoclean allegory in the Song of Clymene at 4.345-7 see Farrell (1991), 260–1, 270–1.
13 The scientific underpinning of the Georgics in a schematic opposition of elements is a central topic of Ross (1987), who however looks rather to Greek science than Lucretius for the sources.
14 On the praise of country life see Klingner, F., ‘Über das Lob des Landlebens in Virgils Georgica’, Hermes 66 (1931), 159-89Google Scholar; id. (1967), 265–77; Williams (1968), 417–26 (comparison with Prop. 3.22); Buchheit (1972), 55–92; Clay, J. S., ‘The argument of the end of Vergil’s second Georgic ,’ Philol. 120 (1976), 232-45CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
15 Plague: West, D., ‘Two plagues. Virgil, Georgics 3.478-566 and Lucretius 6.1090-1286’, in West, and Woodman, (1979), 71–88 Google Scholar; Harrison, E. L., ‘The Norie plague in Vergil’s third Georgie ’, PLLS 2 (1979), 1–65 Google Scholar; Flintoff, E., ‘The Norie cattle plague’, QUCC 13.1 (1983), 85–111 Google Scholar; Clare, R., ‘Chiron, Melampus and Tisiphone: myth and meaning in Vergil’s plague of Noricum’, Hermathena 158 (1995), 95–108 Google Scholar; Freudenburg (n. 11); Klepl, H., Lukrez und Vergil in ihren Lehrgedichten (Darmstadt, 1967), 52–101 Google Scholar.
16 For an analysis of Virgil’s use of Lucretius in this passage see Hardie (1986), 159–67.
17 Varro’s translation (fr. 14 Courtney) is imitated at Geo. 1.374-87.
18 The relevant passages of Eratosthenes and Aratus are gathered at Mynors (1990), 325–30. On the Aratean adaptation see Jermyn, L. A. S., ‘Weather-signs in Virgil’, G&R 20 (1951), 26–37, 46–59Google Scholar;Farrell(1991), 157–68.
19 On Virgil’s use of his prose sources see Jermyn, L. A. S., ‘Virgil’s agricultural lore’, G&R 18 (1949), 49–69 Google Scholar (use of Cato and Varro); Thomas, R. F., ‘Prose into poetry: tradition and meaning in Virgil’s Georgics ,’ HSCP 91 (1987), 229-60Google Scholar (232-5 on Geo. 3.322-38; see also Thomas (1988), i. 25–6; Wilkinson (1969), 11–13). Leach, E. W., ‘ Georgics 2 and the poem’, Arethusa 14 (1981), 35–48 Google Scholar argues that the fortunatus at 2.493 is Varro, and that he is a more important model for the conception of the poem than is usually allowed.
20 Columella: Wilkinson (1969), 270–1. On the nature and intended audience of Varro’s Resrusticae see Rawson, E., Roman Culture and Society (Oxford, 1991), 327-8Google Scholar; Miles (1980), 33–45; Horsfall (1995), 95.
21 On Roman attitudes to nature, farming, and landscape see Miles (1980), ch. 1 ‘The Roman context’ (a good survey); Ross (1987), 10–25; Leach, E. W., The Rhetoric of Space. Literary and Artistic Representations of Landscape in Republican and Augustan Rome (Princeton, 1988), esp. ch. 3 Google Scholar ‘Spatial patterns in Vergil’s Georgics,’.
22 Wilkinson (1969), 3–14 seeks to define the poem as primarily descriptive; (11) ‘The Georgics is ... the first poem in all literature in which description may be said to be the chief raison d’être and source of pleasure’. But note that Virgil seems to anticipate an aestheticism of this kind in his explanation of the reason for planting vines in regular formation (2.285-7) non animum modo uti pascat prospectus inanem, | sed quia non aliter uiris dabil omnibus aequas | terra.
23 Columella took 4.148 literally and included a book in hexameters on gardening in his De Rerustica; the Renaissance produced many didactic poems on gardening.
24 Wilkinson (1969), 300.
25 Ross (1987), 22–4. Cf. the picture at Lucr. 5.1367-78 of the advance of cultivation up the previously afforested mountain-sides, combining productivity with a visual prospect of charming variety. On the relation of the ancients to their environment see Hughes, J. D., Pan’s Travail: Environmental Problems of the Ancient Greeks and Romans (Baltimore and London, 1994)Google Scholar.
26 This wistful search for personal experience surfaces from time to time in Mynors’ comment ary (which is, however, fully alert to the literary sources); see Mynors (1990), p. vi. The reference to the land lost by Mantua, in the course of a detailed discussion of soil-types, at 2.198-9 seems deliberately to flaunt a literary allusivity rather than evoke Virgil’s childhood memory (see Thomas ad loc).
27 Like Horace in Ep. 1.14 and 1.16. See Horsfall (1995), 70–1; J. G. F. Powell on Cic. De senect. 51.
28 de Saint-Denis, E., ‘Une source de Virgile dans les Géorgiques ,’ REL 16 (1938), 297–317, at 308–17Google Scholar; Horsfall, N. M., ‘Cato, Cicero and the Georgics: a note’, Vergilius 41 (1995), 55-6Google Scholar.
29 Cato paints the stereotype of peasant farmers as good men and brave soldiers in the preface of his otherwise hardheadedly entrepreneurial De agricultura.
30 Laudes Italiae as a lie: Thomas (1982), 36–51; Ross (1987), 116–28. On the passage see also McKay, A. G., ‘Vergil’s glorification of Italy (Georgics 2.136-74)’, in Martyn, J. R. C. (ed.), Cicero and Virgil: Studies in Honour of H. Hunt (Amsterdam, 1972), 149-68Google Scholar.
31 Military imagery of farming: Betensky, A., ‘The farmer’s battles’, in Boyle, (1979), 108-19Google Scholar; Glei, R. F., Der Vater der Dinge: Interpretationen zur poetischen, literarischen und kulturellen Dimension des Krieges bei Vergil (Trier, 1991), 277-86Google Scholar. The relationship between literal warfare, against both foreign and civil opponents, and the figurative war on the earth is well discussed in Putnam (1979).
32 Thomas (1982) and (1988), and Ross (1987), index s.v. ‘ethnography’, offer extensive discussion; Dahlmann (1954) had demonstrated the ethnographical background to the description of the bees.
33 See Buchheit (1972), 31–44; Lyne, R. O. A. M., ‘ Scilicet et tempus ueniet . . . Virgil, Georgics 1.463-514’, in Woodman, and West, (1974), 47–66 Google Scholar.
34 Date of Georgics: Wilkinson (1969), 69–70; Horsfall (1995), 63–5.
35 On the function of the poetic patron see White (1993).
36 On the praise of Octavian as a ‘thirteenth god’, very much in the tradition of Hellenistic ruler- worship, see Mynors (1990), 1–3; Wissowa, G., ‘Das Prooemium von Vergils Georgica ’, Hermes 52 (1917), 92–104 Google Scholar.
37 Drew, D. L., ‘Virgi’s marble temple (Georg. 3.10-39)’, CQ 18 (1924), 195–202 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
38 See Liebeschuetz, W., ‘Beast and man in the third book of Virgil’s Georgics ,’ G&R 12 (1965), 64–77 Google Scholar; Gale, M., ‘Man and beast in Lucretius and the Georgics ,’ CQ 41 (1991), 414-26CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
39 The plough: Putnam (1979), 36–7; De Grummond, W. W., ‘The animated implement: a Canillan source for Virgil’s plough’, Eranos 91 (1993), 75–80 Google Scholar.
40 The battle of the bulls is reused in a simile applied to the duelling Aeneas and Turnus at Aen. 12.715-22; see Briggs (1980), 49–50.
41 Miles, G. B., ‘ Georgics 3.209-294: amor and civilization’, CSCA 8 (1975), 177-97Google Scholar.
42 Fundamental on the anthropomorphism of the bees is Dahlmann (1954); see also Whitfield, B. G., ‘Virgil and the bees’, G&R 3 (1956), 99–117 Google Scholar; Buchheit (1972), 161–73.
43 See Ross (1987), ch. 5; Thomas (1988), index s.w. ‘ethnography’, θῦυμα. In general on wonders of the east see Romm, J. S., The Edges of the Earth in Ancient Thought: Geography, Exploration, and Fiction (Princeton, 1992), ch. 3 Google Scholar.
44 See Griffin, J., ‘The fourth Georgie, Virgil and Rome’, in Griffin, (1985), 163-82Google Scholar.
45 In an extreme version in Nadeau, Y., ‘The lover and the statesman: a study in apiculture (Virgil, Georgia 4.281-558)’, in Woodman, and West, (1984), 59–82 Google Scholar.
46 Ross (1987), 191 stresses the coexistence in book 4 of a diachronic cultural history of the bees with a synchronie ethnographical description.
47 Hesiod and Aratus: Farrell (1991), 142–8, 161–2; Lucretius: ibid. ch. 5.
48 Golden Age: see ch. II n. 57, and add Johnston (1980) (arguing for Virgil’s modification of the Hesiodic ‘metallic’ age into an ‘agricultural’ conception of the Golden Age); Smolenaars, J. J. L., ‘Labour in the Golden Age. A unifying theme in Vergil’s poems’, Mnemos. 40 (1987), 391–405 CrossRefGoogle Scholar (‘optimistic’); Ross (1987) and Thomas (1988) offer ‘pessimistic’ readings. On primitivism see Taylor, M. E., ‘Primitivism in Virgil’, AJP 76 (1955), 261–78 Google Scholar, and (in general) Lovejoy, A. O. and Boas, G., Primitivism and Related Ideas in Antiquity (New York, 1965)Google Scholar.
49 Cf. Horace’s definition of his lyric achievement at Odes 3.30.13-14 princeps Aeolium carmen ad Italos | deduxisse modos, where Aeolium refers to the poetry of Alcaeus and Sappho.
50 G. B. Conte’s term (see chapter II n. 41).
51 On the fundamental unity of the epilogue of Geo. 2 and the proem of Geo. 3 see Buchheit (1972), 45–159; Wimmel, W., Kallimachos in Rom (Wiesbaden, 1960), 167-87Google Scholar; Hardie (1986), 33–51. The programmatic poetics of Ecl. 6 also continues an investigation into poetics entered on in the previous Eclogue (see p. 17 above).
52 It should never have been doubted that the primary concern in 2.490-4 is the haunting of Virgil by his great Roman predecessor, Lucretius (as Mynors, but not Thomas, ad loc. allows).
53 The fundamental discussion is by Thomas, R. F., ‘Callimachus, the Victoria Berenices, and Roman poetry’, CQ 33 (1983), 92–113 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For Virgil’s use elsewhere in the Georgics of the Callimachean opposition between grand and small-scale poetry see Thomas (1988), i. 2–3; the large/small contrast central to Virgil’s treatment of the bees is related to his Callimacheanism (see Thomas on 4.6).
54 Wilkinson (1969), 323–4 gives a handy survey of interpretations of the proem to book 3; see also Buchheit (1972), 92–159; an excellent study of the allusive detail is provided by Lundström, S., ‘Der Eingang des Proömiums zum dritten Buche der Georgic’, Hermes 104 (1976), 163-91Google Scholar.
55 On this kind of allusion see McKeown, J. C., Ovid Amores i. (Liverpool, 1987), 37–45 Google Scholar.
56 See Wilkinson, L. P., ‘Pindar and the proem to the third Georgic ’, in Wimmel, W. (ed.), Forschungen zur römischen Literatur. Festschrift K. Büchner (Wiesbaden, 1970), 286–90 Google Scholar.
57 See Mynors on 3.8-9, 13; Lundström (n. 54), 177.
58 See Mynors on 3.10-11; the repeated primus at 3.10-12 also echoes primum . . . primus in Lucretius’ account of the ‘epic’ flight of Epicurus at De rer. nat. 1.66-71 (see Hardie [1986], 48).
59 Toohey (1996), 5–7. For a later Augustan poet’s tendentious definition of the whole of the Latin hexameter tradition as didactic see Hardie, P. R., ‘The Speech of Pythagoras in Ovid Metamorphoses 15: Empedoclean epos’, CQ 45 (1995), 204-14CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
60 Compare the introduction of the peoples and wars of Italy in the invocation at Aen. 7.37-40.
61 Farrell (1991), 238. Farrell’s argument that the poem ‘is informed by an allusive program that finds elements of unity among its diverse models’ (133), develops the brief observations on the distribution of models within the poem by Wender, D., ‘From Hesiod to Homer by way of Rome’, in Boyle, (1979), 59–64 Google Scholar.
62 Homer as the universal poet: Hardie (1986), 22–5.
63 Farrell (1991), 256–72; Hardie (1986), index s.v. ‘allegory’.
64 See Ross (1987), 167–77 ‘The pastoral idea’: id., ‘The pastoral in the Georgics: si numquam fallu imago,’ Arethusa 23 (1990), 59–75, with D. M. Halperin’s penetrating commentary, ‘Pastoral violence in the Georgics’, ibid. 77–93. On pastoral elements in the epic Aeneid see pp. 60–1.
65 Thomas, R. F., ‘Virgil’s Georgics and the art of reference’, HSCP 90 (1986), 171-98Google Scholar; Muecke, F., ‘Poetic self-consciousness in Georgics 2’, in Boyle, (1979), 87–107 Google Scholar; Wijsman, H. J. W., ‘Ascanius, Gargara and female power (Georgics 3.269-270)’, HSCP 95 (1993), 315-18Google Scholar. In general on allusion see ch. II n. 12.
66 Ross (1987) has a keen eye for etymology; for a massive treatment by a pupil of Ross, see O’Hara (1996), with exhaustive bibliography.
67 2.380-96, origins of tragedy and Roman poetry (see Thomas ad loc).
68 1.428-33 PV(BLIVS) VE(RGILIVS) MA(RO) backwards in alternate lines: see Brown (1963), ch. 6; Hasiam, M., ‘Hidden signs: Aratus Diosemeiai 46 ff., Vergil Georgics 1.424ff.’, HSCP 94 (1992), 199–204 Google Scholar.
69 Thomas, R. F., ‘The Old Man revisited: memory, reference and genre in Virg., Georg. 4. 116–48’, MD 29 (1992), 35–70 Google Scholar. But the one reading need not exclude the other, and the episode does seem to owe something to Varro’s story of the beekeeping Faliscan veterans (Res rust. 3.16.10). See also Perkell, C. G., ‘On the Corycian farmer of Virgil’s fourth Georgic ’, TAPA 111 (1981), 167-77Google Scholar; Leigh, M., ‘Servius on Vergil’s Senex Corycius: new evidence’, MD 33 (1994), 181-95Google Scholar.
70 For a comprehensive treatment see Frentz, W., Mythologisches in Vergib Georgica (Meisenheim, 1967)Google Scholar. Wilkinson (1969), 183–5 wrongly dismisses the mythology in the Georgics as mere ornament.
71 On aitia see Schechter (n. 7).
72 Gale, M., ‘Virgil’s metamorphoses: myth and allusion in the Georgics ’ PCPS 41 (1995), 36–61, esp. 49Google Scholar.
73 Gale, M., Myth and Poetry in Lucretius (Cambridge, 1994)Google Scholar.
74 For a detailed examination of the debate, with bibliographical notes, see Jacobson, H., ‘Aristaeus, Orpheus, and the laudes Galli ,’ AJP 105 (1984), 271–300 Google Scholar; Hermes, J., C. Cornelius Gallus und Vergil: Das Problem der Umarbeitung des vierten Georgica-Buches (Münster, 1980)Google Scholar. The decisive interventions against the credibility of Servius were Anderson, W. B., ‘Gallus and the fourth Georgic ’, CQ 27 (1933), 36–45, 73CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Norden, E., ‘Orpheus und Eurydice’, Sitzungsberichte der preussischen Akad., phil.-hist. Klasse (1934), 626–83 [= Kleine Schriften (Berlin, 1966), 468–532 Google Scholar at 469–74]. Recent defenders of Servius include Jacobson himself; Lefèvre, E., ‘Die laudes Galli in Vergils Georgica’, WS 99 (1986), 183-92Google Scholar; Jocelyn, H. D., ‘Servius and the second edition of the Georgics ’, in Atti del convegno mondiale scientifico di studi su Virgilio (Milan, 1984), i. 431-48Google Scholar.
75 Wilkinson (1969), ch. 5; Mynors on 4.281-314. In general see Lee (1996), ch. 1, a survey of earlier discussions; Bowra, C. M., ‘Orpheus and Eurydice’, CQ 2 (1952), 113-26CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Segal, C., ‘Orpheus and the fourth Georgie: Vergil on nature and civilization’, AJP 87 (1966), 307-25Google Scholar (repr. in id., Orpheus: The Myth of the Poet (Baltimore and London, 1989), 36–53); Perkell, C. G., ‘A reading of Virgil’s fourth Georgic ’, Phoenix 32 (1978), 211-21CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
76 On the epyllion see Crump, M. M., The Epyllionfrom Theocritus to Ovid (Oxford, 1931), ch. 9 Google Scholar on Aristaeus; Gutzwiller, K. J., Studies in the Hellenistic Epyllion (Meisenheim, 1981)Google Scholar.
77 Crabbe, A. M., ‘ lgnoscenda quidem . . . Catullus 64 and the fourth Georgic ’, CQ 27 (1977), 342-51CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Catullus 64 was a major model for Ecl. 4, and continues to be a presence in the Aeneid, especially in Dido’s speeches in Aen. 4.
78 Otis (1964), 193–7; Farrell (1991), 104–13.
79 Otis (1964), 197–208; Thomas on 4.453-527.
80 Norden (n. 74), 509–18. For another possible example of tragic allusion see Dewar, M., ‘Octavian and Orestes in the finale of the first Georgic ’, CQ 38 (1988), 563-5CrossRefGoogle Scholar, suggesting an allusion to Aesch. Cho. 1021–5 in the simile of the chariot out of control at 1.512-14.
81 Thomas on 4.453-527.
82 A hypothesis aired by Coleman, R. G., ‘Gallus, the Bucolics, and the ending of the fourth Georgic ’, AJP 83 (1962), 55–71 Google Scholar.
83 See Bradley, A., ‘Augustan culture and a radical alternative: Vergil’s Georgics ’, Arion 8 (1969), 347-58Google Scholar; Conte, G. B., ‘Aristaeus, Orpheus, and the Georgics ’, in Conte, (1986), 130-40Google Scholar, discerns an opposition of ways of life, between Aristaeus the model farmer who learns and successfully acts on instructions, and Orpheus the solipsistic love poet condemned to a purely contemplative mode.
84 E.g. Hor. Ars Poet. 391–3; see Guthrie, W. K. C., Orpheus and Greek Religion (London, 1935), 40-1Google Scholar.
85 I follow Griffin, J., ‘The fourth Georgic, Virgil and Rome’, in Griffin, (1985), 163-82Google Scholar.
86 1.338-50 (worship of Ceres); 2.192-4 (sacrifice to Bacchus); 2.380-96 (worship of Bacchus); 2.473, 527–31 (sacra deum and religious holidays in the ideal rustic life). But religious observance is futile in the plague (3.455-6, 486–93). See Boyancé, P., ‘La religion des “Géorgiques” à la lumière des travaux récents’, ANRW 11 31.1 (1980), 549-73Google Scholar.
87 Chomarat, J., ‘L’initiation d’Aristée’, REL 52 (1974), 185–207 Google Scholar; cf. Scazzoso, P., ‘Riflessi misterici nelle “Georgiche” di Virgilio’, Paideia 11 (1956), 5–28 Google Scholar. The Underworld scene is reused in Aeneas’ katabasis in Aen. 6, which has also been argued to contain allusion to the mystery religions: Luck, G., ‘Virgil and the mystery religions’, AJP 94 (1973), 147-66Google Scholar. Wender, D. S., ‘Resurrection in the fourth Georgic ’, AJP 90 (1969), 424-36Google Scholar sees a contrast between the socially useful ‘fertility rite’ of the Thracian mothers who tear Orpheus apart, and the self-oriented and foreign mystical cults for which Orpheus himself stands.
88 E.g. Miles (1980), 291; Lee (1996); for a fully developed allegorization see Nadeau (n. 45); Llewelyn Morgan will present a searching study of these issues in a forthcoming book. Otis (1964), 213 thinks an identification with Augustus ‘inept’, and takes Aristaeus to stand for ‘the sinful self-destruction, atonement and revival of the Roman people’.
89 On the sphragis: Buchheit (1972), 174–82; Korenjak, M., ‘Parthenope und Parthenias: zur Sphragis der Georgika’, Mnemos. 48 (1995), 201-2Google Scholar (Parthenope, a name for Naples, puns on Virgil’s nickname Parthenias, ‘the maidenly’).
90 The ‘digressions’: 1.118-59 the ‘Theodicy’ (see n. 10); 1.466-514 Omens on the death of Julius Caesar (see n. 33); 2.136-76 Laudes Italiae (see n. 30); 2.323-45 Praise of Spring; 2.458-540 Praise of country life (see n. 14); 3.1-48 Poet’s triumph and temple (see nn. 53–7); 3.242-83 Power of love (see n. 16); 3.478-566 Plague (see n. 15); 4.116-48 Corycian old man (see n. 69).
91 Klingner (1963); Otis (1964), esp. 148–54. The distinction between didactic and purple passages had been undermined by Burck, E., ‘Die Komposition von Vergils Georgika’, Hermes 64 (1929), 279–321 Google Scholar. Another early essay in analysing the structural correspondences in the poem was Drew, D. L., ‘The structure of Vergil’s Georgics ’, AJP 50 (1929), 242-54Google Scholar (though he concluded that the system of correspondence breaks down in the Aristaeus episode, which is therefore a makeweight for the excised laudes Galli).
92 Otis (1964), 151.
93 Kenney, E. J. and Gale, M. R., Lucretius (Greece & Rome New Surveys 11, Oxford, 1995), 16–21 Google Scholar.
94 For some speculation see Nadeau, Y., ‘Aristaeus: Augustus: Berenice: Aeneas’, Mnemos. 42 (1989), 97–101 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also ch. II n. 60.
95 Putnam (1979), 233.
96 Scodel, R. S. and Thomas, R. F., ‘Virgil and the Euphrates’, AJP 105 (1984), 339 Google Scholar point out that on its three occurrences the name Euphrates occurs six lines from the end of a book, and six lines from the end of Callim. Hy. 2 (a key passage of poetic programmâtes). Some have looked for Pythagorean numerical schemes: Grelle, G. Le, ‘Le première livre des Géorgiques, poème pythagoricien’, LEC 17 (1949), 139–225 Google Scholar, followed by Brown (1963); for judicious discussion see Wilkinson (1969), 316–22.
97 Otis, B., rev. Wilkinson (1969), Phoenix 26 (1972), 40–62, at 61CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
98 Putnam (1979), 15.
99 Miles (1980), p. xiii.
100 See p. 94 below.
101 Otis (1964), 212–13. Otis later qualified his view, concluding (Phoenix 26 (1972), 59), ‘The most marvellous achievements of poetry and agriculture . . . are tragically limited’. Other optimists include Klingner (1963), who perceives a synthesis of death in life and life out of death in the final triumph of book 4; Stehle (n. 10), for whom Aristaeus transcends the irresponsibility of the Golden Age.
102 Thomas (1988), i. 24. Pessimists include Ross (1987), Thomas (1982) and (1988), and A. J. Boyle, who sees a failure in the poem to ‘subsume’ human tragedy and failure in the spiritual regeneration of Rome (‘In medio Caesar: paradox and politics in Virgil’s Georgics’, in Boyle (1979), 65–86; see id. (1986), ch. 3.
103 The translations are those offered by Thomas on 1.145-6, himself a committed pessimist, as is Altevogt (n. 10). For an optimistic (‘progressive’) interpretation see Jenkyns, R., ‘ Labor improbus ,’ CQ 43 (1993), 243-8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
104 Parry, A., ‘The idea of art in Virgil’s Georgics ,’ Arethusa 5 (1972), 35–52 Google Scholar, concluding (52) ‘The grief is elevated to the highest art, and in that art, the epitome of all human art and craft, lies the true immortality of the poem, the resolution of man’s confrontation with the absolute of death.’ For Putnam (1979), 315 art itself is ‘poised between perfection and fragmentation, firm order and chaos, ethereal musings and cloddish reality’.
105 Griffin (1985), 176.
106 Seep. 31 above.
107 Perkell (1989), ch. 3.
108 Philosophy in the Georgiecs: Wilkinson (1969), ch. 6.
109 So Habinek, T. N., ‘Sacrifice, society, and Vergi’s ox-born bees’, in Griffith, M. and Mastronarde, D. J. (eds.), Cabinet of the Muses: Essays on Classical and Comparative Literature in Honor of T. G. Rosenmeyer (Atlanta, 1990), 209-23Google Scholar.
110 Thomas, R. F., ‘The “sacrifice” at the end of the Georgias, Aristaeus, and Vergilian closure’, CP 86 (1991), 211-18Google Scholar, answering Habinek. Clare (n. 15) argues that Aristaeus’ success reasserts the value of didacticism in the face of the ravages of disease.
111 Thomas denies that 2.537 impia . . . caesis gens est epulata iuuencis need refer to a sacrificial feast, but the verbal echo at 3.23 caesosque uidere iuuencos (of sacrifice) strongly suggests a link.
112 Gale (n. 72) argues that the poem’s polyphony is a deliberate result of its allusive pluralism. Batstone, W. W., ‘On the surface of the Georgics ,’ Arethusa 21 (1988), 227-45Google Scholar applies a reader-response approach to the shifting perspectives of the poem.
113 Perkell (1989), 190.