Sobre la edición bilingüe de Vicente Cristóbal.

Una traducción que mantiene la estructura del original en hexámetro. Cada poema incluye una breve introducción sobre lo que narra y las fuentes de inspiración, así como notas suplementarias que clarifican el lenguaje no literal y apuntan hacia el pasado, presente y futuro del poema (esto en particular lo hace una lectura fascinante ya que enseña a quiénes hacía homenaje Virgilio y después quiénes hicieron lo mismo por él siglos después).

Mi único consejo sería leer antes algunos de los autores a quienes hace referencia Virgilio, cosa que yo no había hecho; de no ser por las notas, no hubiera entendido partes del trabajo. Con base en la información de esta edición, decidí adquirir una traducción del trabajo de Calímaco con la esperanza de poder volver a Bucólicas y releerlas. También el texto alude mucho a lo que después recogió Ovidio en Metamorfosis y al trabajo de Teócrito, creador original del género.

L'introduzione e i corollari come al solito occupano più di metà del libro, e in questo caso non fanno un buon servizio perché non sono affatto introduzioni "divulgative" ma per già esperti.

Rimane il testo virgiliano: uno strano misto di poesia arcadica con punte di realismo, temi sociali e stilemi del genere organizzato in dialoghi e canti. Difficile per me, non esperto, giudicare.

BOOK REVIEW
"The Eclogues" by Virgil

"The Eclogues" is one of the three works credited and attributed to Virgil. A collection of poems originally written in the Latin language, these poems, titular eclogues, cover the everyday lives of Romans of Virgil's time and era.

MY THOUGHTS:
I honestly forgot to rate Virgil's two other works. I've read all the three works accredited to him and this is 1/3 of the works, alongside the later "Georgics" and the much later and his greatest work, "The Aeneid".

I feel that the poems were just fine, though it would've been a great reading experience if "The Eclogues" was a longer work. Anyway, that is all.

This book was my first introduction to Virgil's Eclogues, many years ago. Latin poetry was new to me then, and the copy I read (by flashlight under the bedsheets) had the Latin text facing an English translation. I no longer have that book, but I recently obtained a first edition (published 1949), which lacks the Latin, but as I was reading and translating the Latin text anyway for the LatinStudy email list (see https://www.quasillum.com/study/latin...) using other books, I didn't miss it. E.V. Rieu's prose translations are workmanlike, but the best parts of the book are his Introduction and the Essays on each poem, expressing his interesting personal views at some length. There's also a useful glossary of gods, persons, and places real or imaginary that are mentioned in the poems.

I once spoke with a young goatherd on a wild Greek hillside and imagined for a moment I was in Arcadia, but I was rapidly aware of the disconnect between fantasy and reality. I could just about imagine him playing a flute but he and his goats exuded a very pungent and not very appealing odour, and although the music of the goats and their tinkling bells blended pleasingly with the music of the cicadas, the turd-littered rocky setting, spiky thorns and harsh sunlight were not really the stuff of rural idyll. No matter – Virgil knew that Arcadia is mostly in the mind – why else would he call his shepherds Arcadians when they are on the banks of the Po, a long way from the Peleponnese?

Shepherds in antiquity didn’t spend all their time reclining on flowery meads reciting poetry and talking about lost love. In reality, their life was harsh, they were unlikely to be particularly bright or attractive, and they almost certainly smelled bad. Never mind – the scenes that Virgil presents are, to my mind, deeply and powerfully attractive. And who has not been moved by poetry, or suffered the pangs of lost love, or been deeply moved by contemplating a rustic landscape? These poems and the life they evoke are wonderful. E V Rieu’s sensitive introduction and excellent notes on each poem are as perfectly pitched as the notes of an Arcadian flute. I am so grateful that I live far from any urban conurbation, buried in the green heart of the countryside. But even if my window overlooked a smoky urban roofscape, my heart would dwell in Arcadia.

This is a reprint of the old University Tutorial Press edition of the Eclogues, Virgil's (or Vergil's, as spelt here) pastoral poems, which I first read some sixty years ago - they were the first Latin verse I ever read - and which I have now revisited with pleasure in the course of translating them in a group on the LatinStudy email list (see https://www.quasillum.com/study/latin...).

I have to admit that I generally avoid Latin poetry. Its complicated metrical systems are borrowed from Greek, and the Latin language doesn't fit into them so well. Consequently we find obscure expressions used in place of more natural ones that wouldn't scan, and the words coming in far from a logical order. As a result, understanding a Latin poem is often a matter of solving a puzzle rather than enjoying the sentiment. This is especially so in the case of the Eclogues; Virgil reads much more smoothly in his later works, the Georgics and the Aeneid.

In this edition of the Eclogues, there is a short introduction, the Latin text, a commentary on it, and a glossary of personal names. The scholarship is dated, but I still found it helpful in conjunction with more recent publications, notably the Bristol Classical Press edition of the Eclogues and Georgics, as an aid to understanding.

قد يكون مستغربا أن أمنح فرجيل العظيم أهم و أعظم الشعراء في تراث الرومانيين نجمتين فقط ..
إذن جميل أن أعلل ذلك على الأقل لنفسي فأقول إن هذه الأناشيد المسماة بأناشيد الرعاة و التي كنبها فرجيل ملهم الشعر اللاتيني قاطبة قد كتب ما كتب محاولا النسج على منوال الإغريق و إن لم يصل إلى درجة إتقانهم إذ يبقى التراث اليوناني له قصب السبق في الشعر و المسرح و مختلف الفنون الأدبية .. و حتى لا يضيع الخيط مني أقول :نعم لقد وصف فرجيل الطبيعة حوله و كانت أناشيده العشرة عبارة عن محاورات بين رعاة حول قضايا مختلفة لكنني و بكثير من الثقة أقول إنها ابنة عصرها ..
أيا ما يكن الأمر ؛ ثمة لفتات جميلة لكنها لا تستحق أكثر من هذا التقييم ..
أمين سلامة المترجم و الباحث و المؤرخ صدقني إن عملك جد جبار و ما قمت به من شروح و ملخصات و فهارس للأعلام و ملحق للصور مع التعليق عليها عمل جبار يستأهل كل احترام و تقدير .. فألف شكر لك ..

much gayer than I expected

This is a selection of shepherds poems written around 37 B.C. by Virgil who drew from previous authors and the tradition that was already established (Shepherds Poems). There are surprising Christian overtones here, particularly in Eclogue IV where a virgin birth is predicted that will be a hero savior to bring humanity into a golden age... and also in the final Eclogue where it is said "Love conquers all things". It is quick to read through the entire selection of the Eclogues and I recommend it to those who appreciate poetry and Greek/Roman literature.

Opera poetica di una lucidità e di un disincanto commoventi.
Detta senza troppi giri di parole: credo che gli antichi - soprattutto i grandi, e Virgilio è uno dei più grandi - avessero la capacità di riconoscere, guardare in faccia ed esprimere alcuni movimenti fondamentali dell'anima umana con un rigore ed un'onestà di pensiero che - generalizzando, me ne rendo conto - oggi ritrovo con difficoltà.
Provo a proporre un esempio concreto, i versi dal 63 al 65 della seconda ecloga. In italiano, nella traduzione di Luca Canali, suonano così: "La feroce leonessa insegue il lupo, il lupo, la capra / la stessa irrequieta capra cerca il citiso in fiore / Coridone cerca te, o Alessi: ognuno è attratto dal suo desiderio".
Trahit sua quemque voluptas. "Trahit", letteralmente, significa "trascinare". "Voluptas" è parola intraducibile. Si può rendere con "piacere", "voluttà", "godimento".
In questi versi, dunque, Virgilio riconosce e dice splendidamente come ciascuno di noi sia mosso, in primo luogo, dal proprio piacere, dalla propria bramosia e dalla propria volontà.

Mi sembra che, in tempi di razionalismo sterile, questo possa essere un gran bell'insegnamento: la volontà viene sempre prima del pensiero (inteso qui, chiaramente, come "ragione strumentale").

He llegit la traducció d'Antoni Cobos a l'editorial Palamedes, m'ha agradat molt.

"Poeta diví, el teu cant és per a mi / com el dormir a l'herba per als cansats, com a l'estiu / calmar la set amb l'aigua que saltirona al riu".

Wonderful work!