Bucoliche
Bucoliche (from Bukòlos,
cowhand, shepherd) are a poem based on pastoral poetry of the Greek Teòcrito:
poems of affectionate shepherds, setting of a poetic mythology.. the setting
described is a idealized county landscape, in which neverthelessthey can be
recognized some features of Sicily (Birthplace of Teòcrito), Arcadia (mythic
land of Peloponneso, birthplace of God Pan) and of the Po Valley, is it
to say the lands known from Virgil from the tender age.
In this idealized Landscape,
the life of shepherds-poets flows peaceful and in contact with a uncontaminated
nature. The war is a element of disturb that messes up the regular pass of the
life.
In the words of melibeo, the
expropriated shepherd, there is all the Virgil's bitterness for a situation
that himself has lived.
The only support ,may come
from the idealized landscape and the poetry. Indeed the man can find happiness
only frìar from uprisings and poltic life, recovering the relationship with the
nature:
et, si quid cessare potes, requiesce sub umbra.
Huc ipsi potum venient per prata iuvenci;
hic virides tenera praetexit arundine ripas
Mincius, eque sacra resonant examina quercu.
If
you can, stop, rest in the shade. Here
will come through fields heifers to water. Here
the river Mincio is coasted by tender reeds, and
from the Holy Oak you can hear swarms wirring
Georgiche
Georgiche (from georgòs,
peasant) have a high stylistic perfection and they are more harmonic and
homogeneous.
The topic of the work is
summarized in the first lines: Virgil wants to sing the activities of the
peasants, with times and seasons suitable for the different works, the farming
of plants, methods of rearing and apicolture. The layout of the books isn't
random, it goes on to activities in which the work of the man becomes less and
less influent and, on the other hand, nature is more and more protagonist.
Compared with the previous
work , here there is more realism: there is the real picture of the life in the
countyside, with its harda and drudgery works, which Virgil had known in his
childhood. Indeed there isn't the misleading and nostalgic landscape of
Bucoliche:men, plants, animals are gotin their full and concrete material
essentiality. A substance, however, that gives life to plants and animals,
gathering a human aspect, in the love with which the poet is able to emerge
their affective motions.
Virgil confers a big status
to the work of the peasant: it is a tiring activity, but iti is able to bear
fruits. The country is the place of peace, of the justice and of every other
virtues, opposed to the city : place of corruption and of disocrd caused by the
desire and ambition of richness. The peasant, on the other hand, through the
work and the relationship with nature, can reach wisdom and the realese from
evil.
Quos rami fructus, quos ipsa volentia rura
sponte tulere sua, carpsit, nec ferrea iura
insanumque forum aut populi tabularia vidit
He
collects the fruits brought from the brances, gladly and
spontaneously
produced from its lands.
He
doesn't know anything about iron laws,
about
the deliriums of the forum, about the public catalogues.
II, 500-502
Aeneid
With the Aeneid Virgil deals
with the epic front, putting himself in competition with Homer. He choses to
tells about Aeneas' events, the troian hero forefather of Gens Iulia – to which
belonged Ottaviano himself – fled from the city on fire with his son and his
old father, in order to find a new homeland beyond the sea.
Even if he connects with
Homeric epic poems, there are significant differences between them and Virgil's
work. Aeneas doesn't face the unknown motivated from curiosity and the desire
of awareness, how Ulysses had done, but to obey to a God's plan. The virgilian
hero doesn't fight – like Achilles – in order to gain honour and glory, but
only because he is forced: furthermore the war, in Eneide it will have as
purpose the foundation of a city (the future Rome), Iliad ended with the ruin
of Troy. Aeneas prents himself as the personification of all the virtues and
all the worths on which in in the past based the greatness of Rome, that August
wanted to restore: indeed he is pius both with regards to divinities – as he
respects their will - and in human relationships, behave always according to
justice princpes.
Humility, sense of limit and
respect for the birthplace and for the family: they are the qualities that the
new hero must show to have, qualities that are shared from Virgil himself.
«Haec» inquit «limina victor
Alcides subiit, haec illum regia cepit;
aude, hospes, contemnere opes et te quoque dignum
finge deo rebusque veni non asper egenis».
«These
gateways Hercules winning exceeded
and
the palce you see greeted him.
Dare
to despise riches, guest, and become worthy
of
God, and come with hearth to the poor things disposed».
VIII, 362-365
