Virgil · 70 - 19 BC
Eclogues
Eclogae (Bucolica)The Eclogues (or Bucolics), ten short pastoral poems in Latin hexameter written around 42-38 BC, were Virgil's first published work. Modelled on the Idylls of Theocritus, they give voice to shepherds who sing of love, loss and the land, some in singing matches, while the confiscations of farms after the civil wars, the poet's friends Pollio and Gallus, and the hope of a new golden age break into their world. Each eclogue has its own page; citations are by eclogue and line of the Latin (4.1-63); the English is James Rhoades' blank-verse translation, which has its own line count.
Contents · 10 passages
- 1.1–84Eclogue 1: Meliboeus and Tityrus806 words
- 2.1–73Eclogue 2: Corydon's love for Alexis703 words
- 3.1–111Eclogue 3: the singing match of Menalcas and Damoetas1209 words
- 4.1–63Eclogue 4: the return of the golden age602 words
- 5.1–90Eclogue 5: the death and deification of Daphnis892 words
- 6.1–86Eclogue 6: the song of Silenus859 words
- 7.1–70Eclogue 7: Corydon and Thyrsis691 words
- 8.1–109Eclogue 8: the songs of Damon and Alphesiboeus1113 words
- 9.1–67Eclogue 9: Lycidas and Moeris687 words
- 10.1–77Eclogue 10: Gallus748 words
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English translation by James Rhoades (1921). Original text: J. B. Greenough (ed.), The Bucolics, Aeneid, and Georgics of Virgil, Boston: Ginn and Company, 1881 (Latin text as digitised by Perseus); English: James Rhoades, The Poems of Vergil, London: Oxford University Press, 1921.
Greek text and translation from the Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University, CC BY-SA 4.0 (Perseus Digital Library); translation public domain. Introductions, summaries and notes © GreekMythology.com.
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