Kenney_and_Clausen B.M.W.(eds.) - Get a Free Blog

THEOCRITUS AND VIRGIL
410 (or 408) lines. The two longest eclogues, the third (m lines) and the
eighth (no or 108 lines) are symmetrically placed, each being the centrepiece
of its half; and in each eight lines have been inserted to flatter a patron
who is praised for his poetry: 3.84—91 (Pollio), 8.6—13 (Octavian).
The first word of the first line of the first Eclogue and the last word of the
last line of the fifth is a poet-shepherd's name, in the vocative case: Tityre. . .
Menalca. Tityrus and Menalcas, Virgil'spersonae: such precision of form cannot
be accidental. The two names define the first half of the book as tersely
as the name Alexis, in the accusative case, rounds off the second Eclogue, the
first line of which ends. . .Alexin, as does the last. . .Alexin. Did Virgil expect
his readers to notice — or, rather, would a Roman reader notice details of this
sort? Probably: for he read aloud, slowly, and had been trained from boyhood
up in the discipline of rhetoric. However, artifice need not be noticed to be
effective, and may be the more effective for not being noticed.
The opening line of the sixth Eclogue:
Prima Syracosio dignata est ludere uersu
suggests a fresh start, and some ancient critics (so Servius affirms) wished to
put the sixth Eclogue first. Tityrus' name in line 4 (Tityre*) and especially line 8:
agrestem tenui meditabor harundine Musam
/ will meditate the rural Muse on a slender reed
were meant to recall the opening lines of the first Eclogue:
Tityre, tu patulae recubans sub tegmine fagi
siluestrem tenui Musam meditaris auena.
Tityrus, you lying there under the covert of a spreading beech, you meditate the
woodland Muse on a slender reed.
Virgil, or for that matter any poet schooled in the Alexandrian tradition,
rarely repeats a line intact or even slightly varied; and if he does, he does
so with a special purpose in mind. Virgil's purpose here is obviously to
define the first half of his book and, at the same time, connect it with the
second half.
It will be enough to add — although much more might be added to this brief
and necessarily superficial description — that as Gallus the erudite Alexandrian
is the chief figure of the sixth Eclogue, so Gallus the love-sick elegist is the
chief figure of the tenth. Again, Virgil's purpose is obvious: to define the
second half of his book.
But why a book of ten pastoral poems? a book in which each of the ten is
enhanced somehow in its place? in which the ten, taken together, have a col-
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