The Chaonian Dove: Studies in the Eclogues Georgics and Aeneid of Virgil

208 Pages·1986·3.917 MB·English

by  A.J. Boyle

THE CHAONIAN DOVE
MNEMOSYNE
BIBLIOTHECA CLASS I CA BA TA VA
COLLEGERUNT
A. D. LEEMAN · H. W. PLEKET · C. J. RUIJGH
BIBLIOTHECAE FASCICULOS EDENDOS CURAVIT
C.J. RUIJGH. KLASSIEK SEMINARIUM. OUDE TURFMARKT 129. AMSTERDAM
SUPPLEMENTUM NONAGESIMUM QUARTUM
A.J. BOYLE
THE CHAONIAN DOVE
LUGDUNI BATAVORUM E.J. BRILL MCMLXXXVI
THE CHAONIAN DOVE
Studies in the Eclogues, Georgics, and Aeneid
of Virgil
BY
A.J. BOYLE
LEIDEN E.J. BRILL 1986
ISBN 90 04 07672 7
Copyright 1986 by E. J. Brill, Leiden, The Netherlands
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or
translated in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, microfiche
or any other means without written permission from the publisher.
FOR KATHY, JAMES AND JUDY
sed carmina tantum
nostra ualent, Lycida, tela inter Martia quantum
Chaonias dicunt aquila ueniente columbas.
But our songs
Have as much strength, Lycidas, among the spears of Mars
As, they say, have Chaonian doves when the eagle comes.
Virgil, Eclogue 9

CONTENTS
Preface . . . IX
Abbreviations XI
I. Introduction : The Failed Text
II. Pastoral Meditation: The Eclogues . 15
III. Didactic Paradox: The Georgics 36
IV. Epic Vision: The Aeneid (I) . 85
V. Epic Vision: The Aeneid (2) . 133
Appendix : The Historical Background 177
List of Modern Works Cited 180
General Index . 185
Index Locorum 192

PREFACE
This is the first book-length critical study of the three Virgilian works to be
published in English since Brooks Otis' celebrated inquiry, Virgil: A Study in
Civilized Poetry (Oxford 1964). It examines separately and in detail the
thematic design and intent of the Eclogues, the Georgics and the Aeneid, and
documents the development of their political, moral and poetic pessimism.
The book is in three main parts-'Pastoral Meditation', 'Didactic Paradox',
'Epic Vision'----corresponding to the three Virgilian texts. A brief introductory
chapter is concerned with questions of method and the problem of Virgil
misread. The book is a development of earlier essays published by me in
Ramus l ( 1972), 4 ( 1975) and 8 ( 1979), and offers a substantial reassessment
of Virgil's poetic <Euvre.
All Latin texts are translated. The majority of those who will read this
book will be students of classical literature in translation with little or
no knowledge of Latin. They constitute the bulk of Virgil's contemporary
readership. If Virgil or any classical poet still has a role to play in the culture,
it is because of and by means of such readers. Contemporary criticism must
be accessible to them. This book is addressed to them as much as it is to the
professional scholar and to teachers and students of Latin.
The translations throughout the book are my own, and aim at a high level
of verbal and stylistic accuracy. They are with few exceptions line-by-line, and
employ for the Virgilian hexameter a five or six stress line of eleven to fifteen
syllables. The syllabic and stress variation is similar to that used by Virgil,
whose hexameter varies in length from thirteen to seventeen syllables and,
despite its unfailing adherence to six metrical 'beats' or ictus, not infrequently
has five and not six stresses. An identical scheme was used for my The
Eclogues of Virgil (Melbourne 1976), from which the translations of the
Eclogues in this book are taken.
The book is published with the aid of a subvention from the Monash
University Publications Committee. I offer the Committee my sincere thanks.
My other debts are many. The benefit I have derived from the 'new critical'
work of the last twenty-five years can be gauged from the plethora of
references to it in the notes accompanying each chapter. Disagreement is
often index of substantial indebtedness. To colleagues, friends and students in
Australia, England and North America, who have been exposed to my views
for a decade or more and have responded to them with fine criticism and
insight, I owe more than can be reckoned. If I mention by name Bob
Coleman, Peter Connor, Peter Davis, Gerald Fitzgerald, Guy Lee, John
Penwill, Michael Putnam, Charles Segal and Deryck Williams, it is not
X PREFACE
because they will approve of what this book contains, but because without
their collaborative friendship and the humane scholarship which they repre-
sent this book would be even poorer than it is. It is dedicated to three people,
with whom in a garden on the Palatine I saw the fragments of a dream.
Monash University A.J.B.
Melbourne
December 1984