Volume 19, 2007 - Brown University

Virgil in Love
Peter Catsimpiris
Throughout his first two collections, the Eclogues and the Georgics, Virgil presents
an unchanging vision of love, the consistency of which is accentuated by
the very disparate settings of these two works. In the Eclogues, Virgil presents
an idyllic world of harmonious union between man and nature. This “Saturnian”
universe is one bereft of serious labor and concerns, a realm in which shepherds
must merely find suitable grazing ground for their flocks and cool shade in
which to recline and compose poetry and song. In stark contrast to this utopia
stands the “Jovian” world of the Georgics, in which “everything by nature’s law
tends to the worse, slips ever backward” (Geor. 1.200-01). In this, his second
collection, Virgil imparts to the reader the grim reality that man and nature are
not perfectly reconciled to each other, but rather human beings must labor incessantly
to give form to natural disorder. While these two very distinct outlooks
seem to conflict, making plausible an interpretation that Virgil’s outlook on our
world in general may have evolved over the course of his career, the poet presents
a complex yet consistent stance on love throughout both of these books.
Virgil’s warning against the destructive potential of uncultivated love is ubiquitous,
but he also characterizes it as instrumental in sparking artistic creativity
when properly yoked. Virgil can thus be said to view love through the sober lens
of the Georgics: as it is a part of nature, man must not cave under the destructive
influence of this most fundamental emotion, but rather harness its potential as an
inspiring creative force.
Virgil portrays the devastation unbridled love can cause in an
anthropomorphic example in Book 3 of the Georgics. Relating the violent tale of
two bulls competing for a single heifer, Virgil vividly describes the gruesome
result of allowing “the goads of blinding Venus” free reign to prod as they will
(Geor. 3.210). “The bulls contend. . .many a wound is opened, dark blood
streams down their sides, and horn to horn they butt each other bellowing
terribly” (Geor. 3.219-22). According to the poet, this destructive tendency is in
danger of harming not merely irrational beasts incapable of properly tending to
love, but “all species in the world,” including human beings (Geor. 3.242). As
such, an analysis of the tale of the sparring bulls as a direct allegory to loveobsessed
youths is both appropriate and inevitable, and it thus serves as a
warning against the harm that unconstrained love threatens to cause any who fall
victim to it.
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