THE ECLOGUES OF VIRGIL

The Eclogues of Virgil ($25.00; Aug.; 144 pp.; 0-374-14634-9) is a new translation of the first great work by the greatest of all Latin poets, nicely organized in a facing-page edition that preserves the sonorous Latin of the original opposite Ferry’s fluid and careful English rendering. Long considered the father of pastoral verse, Virgil in fact learned the technique from his master, Theocritus, but it was his Eclogues that became the standard against which all pastoral poets were measured for centuries to come. In his introduction, Ferry provides a concise appreciation of the role of the pastoral in the poetic imagination: —In these pastoral situations our faults and virtues are written large; the pastoral structure simplifies what we all share . . . while at the same time demonstrating how vulnerable we are.— A city-dweller’s hymn to the country, the pastoral is really a consideration of man’s role in the world at large, and in Virgil’s case it marks the dawn of a new self-consciousness in literature. Although there’s a certain flatness to Ferry’s translation (—Let them light up the torches, Mopsus, they / Are bringing you your bride. The Evening Star / Is rising for you now from behind the mountain—) that runs roughshod over the original cadences, for the most part this is a worthy and welcome effort.