This book of pastoral poems is a classic, and therefore difficult to dismiss off-handedly. What I found interesting were other reviews on Goodreads. One stated: "I have hardly any clue what I actually read". Virgil reads like Shakespeare, although the work is translated from Latin, so I share the sentiments of the other reviewer! It took me some time to read the poems, as I had to research the various characters and Greek and Roman gods to make sense of it. Even then, the background story of the civil wars and political instability in Rome is difficult to discern simply from the poems' text. The imagery of the text is evident in Naomi Mitchison's book n  Cloud Cuckoo Landn, but the difference between Roman and Greek ideals about pastoral life are significant. While Virgil applies Greek imagery to the Italian landscape, the images belie the true story. In Virgil's time, rich Roman families dominated the farms and used slave labour to operate them. According to David Quint, writing in n  The New Republicn, it was the Roman equivalent of what has happened in agribusiness in the United States, where the virtues of the rural life on the family farm persist, yet 'big business' owns most of the farms. The Georgics are didactic in that they provide guidance for farming, interspersed with metaphors for the birth of Rome. I found Georgic IV, which concludes the book, to be inspiring. We are hoping to keep bees, and bee-keeping is the subject of the poem (if one puts aside the birth-of-Rome metaphor). So there is some joy to be found for the virgin reader, much like one might find in a Shakespearean sonnet. However, without the background information, one might read and not absorb a word of what one had read. This brings me to this particular Dover Thrift Edition. I enjoy the size and price of this series, but sometimes I wonder whether a more substantial text with notes would be useful. Of course, there is the tendency, like in the Penguin version of Franz Kafka's n  The Metamorphosisn, to have longer notes than the actual work, and this can be worse. Nevertheless, this reading was useful as I steel myself for tackling Homer, Milton, and Dante.

The "Eclogues" and "Georgics" (Oxford World's Classics) by Virgil (1999)

3,5 ⭐ Bucólicas: 3, Geórgicas: 4

I like the eclogues in the Day Lewis translation.
The Georgics are very bizarre. I really only like the end of number four.
20 some years ago when I read these (in a different translation) I liked the Georgics and thought the Eclogues were vapid nothings. I think it is funny that now in my 60's I think the reverse.

I can't say I'm particularly interested in the accumulated wisdom of Roman farmers, but Day-Lewis' translation of Virgil vividly evokes the sounds and patterns of rural life.

2020-02-15 Read David Slavitt’s “commentary/translations,” essentially positing that Virgil was the 1st century B.C. answer to Woody Allen

This book of pastoral poems from Virgil is very interested in agricultural methods. As I read the first half of it, I was bored out of my skull, spurred on only by the knowledge that the book was very short and that I could finish it quickly and move on to something else.

In the second half, something happened. I was sitting with my newborn son, just weeks old. For whatever reason, I decided to start reading the poem out loud to him. The act of reading the language did something to change it for me, and I was...not exactly engrossed, but definitely more attentive than I had been. I tried to slow down and just feel the rhythm of the language and the timelessness of the poetry. My son seemed to like it too, as much as a two week old can like anything.

The introduction tried to tell me that these books may have allegorical political meanings, but that was entirely lost on me. This is not a book I'll be revisiting very often, but the specialness of that one memory does mean that I have to bump up my star rating a bit. If you're in an unusually contemplative mood, these poems have been around for thousands of years, waiting to be read aloud.

old man talks about bees 10/10

La idealización de la vida y el trabajo en el campo como símbolo de la pureza nacional ya existía en la antigua Roma. Pero en vez de grabar vídeos para ser virales, escribían poemas que elogiasen ese bucolismo. Virgilio va de lo romántico a lo didáctico en 14 piezas influyentes.

Fun and bucolic.

Excellent book!!!

Lette alcune per dovere scolastico. Non si è rivelata una brutta lettura.