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For other uses see Virgil (disambiguation).
Publius Vergilius Maro (October 15, 70–19 BC) known in English as Virgil or Vergil, Latin poet, is the author of the Eclogues, the Georgics, and the Aeneid, this last being a narrative poin twelve books that is deservingly called the Roman Empire's national epic.
Life
some of which may be Virgil's, and another, a short narrative poem titled the Culex (the mosquito), was attributed to Virgil as early as the 1st century AD.
Such dubious poems are sometimes referred to as the Appendix Virgiliana.
In 42 BC, after the defeat of Julius Caesar's assassins, Brutus and Cassius, the demobilized soldiers of the victors were settled on expropriated land and Virgil's estate near Mantua was confiscated. However, the first of the Eclogues, written around 42 BC, is taken as evidence that Octavian restored the estate, for it tells how "Tityrus" recovered his land through Octavian's intervention and "Tityrus" is usually identified as Virgil himself. Virgil soon became part of the circle of Maecenas, Octavian's capable agent d'affaires who sought to counter sympathy for Marc Antony among the leading families by rallying Roman literary figures to Octavian's side. After the Eclogues were completed, Virgil spent the years 37–29 BC on the Georgics ("On Farming"), which was written in honor of Maecenas. But Octavian, who had defeated Antony at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC and two years later had the title "Augustus" given him by the Roman senate, was already pressing Virgil to write an epic in praise of his regime.
Virgil responded with the Aeneid, which took up his last ten years. The first six books of the epic tell how the Trojan hero Aeneas escapes from the sack of Troy and makes his way to Italy. On the voyage, a storm drives him on to the coast of Carthage where the queen, Dido, welcomes him and before long Aeneas falls deeply in love. But Jupiter recalls Aeneas to his duty and he slips away from Carthage, leaving Dido to commit suicide but not before swearing vengeance. On reaching Cumae, in Italy, Aeneas consults the Cumaean Sibyl, who conducts him through the Underworld and reveals his destiny to him. Aeneas is reborn as the creator of imperial Rome.
The first six books (of "first writing") are modeled on Homer's Odyssey, but the last six are the Roman answer to the Iliad. Aeneas is betrothed to Lavinia, daughter of king Latinus, but Lavinia had already been promised to Turnus, the king of the Rutulians who is roused to war by the Fury, Allecto. The Aeneid ends with a single combat between Aeneas and Turnus, whom Aeneas defeats and kills, spurning his plea for mercy.
When Virgil died with the epic unfinished, Augustus ordered Virgil's literary executors, Varius and Tucca, to disregard Virgil's own wish that the poem be destroyed and to publish it with as few editorial changes as possible. Incomplete or not, the Aeneid was immediately recognized as a masterpiece. It proclaimed the imperial mission of the Roman Empire but at the same time could pity Rome's victims and feel their grief. Dido and Turnus, who are both casualties of Rome's destiny, are more attractive figures than Aeneas, whose single-minded devotion to his goal may seem almost repellent to the modern reader. However, the virtue that Virgil portrays in Aeneas may be referred to as pietas, roughly translated as piety. It is his duty to the Gods, his family and his homeland. Aeneas struggles between doing what he wants to as a man, and doing what he must as a virtuous hero with pietas. Aeneas' inner turmoil, and on many occassions, shortfallings, make him a far more realistic character than the heroes of the older poems such as Odysseus of the Odyssey by Homer.
Secret meanings in Virgil In the medieval period, Virgil was considered a herald of Christianity, for his Eclogue 4 verses concerning the birth of a boy were re-read to prophesy Christ's nativity. The poem may actually refer to the pregnancy of Octavian's wife Scribonia, who in fact gave birth to a girl.
In the Middle Ages, as Virgil developed into a kind of magus or wizard, manuscripts of the Aeneid were used for divination, the sortes virgilianae, in which a line would be selected at random and interpreted as Old Testament lines were interpreted for arcane meanings, in light of a current situation. (Compare the ancient Chinese I Ching.)
Even in the Welsh myth of Taliesin, the goddess Cerridwen is reading from the "Book of Pheryllt"--that is, Virgil.
More recently, professor Jean-Yves Maleuvre has proposed that Virgil wrote the Aeneid using a "double writing" system, in which the first superficial writing was intended for national audience and Augustus' needs, while the second one, deeper and hidden, unnoticed before Maleuvre discovered it, reflected Virgil's true point of view and his true historical reconstruction of the past. Maleuvre believes Augustus had Virgil murdered once the epic was finished. Maleuvre's ideas have not met general acceptance.
There are some indications that Vergil was adept in the magic arts, and may have practiced necromancy.
Later views of Virgil Even as the Roman world collapsed, literate men acknowledged that the Christianized Virgil was a master poet, even when they ceased to read him. Gregory of Tours had read Virgil and some other Latin poets, though he cautions us that "We ought not to relate their lying fables, lest we fall under sentence of eternal death." Dante made Virgil his guide in his Divine Comedy. Virgil is still considered the greatest of the Latin poets.
Virgil's Name in English In the Middle Ages "Vergilius" was bastardized to "Virgilius." There are two explanations commonly given for the alteration in the spelling of Virgil's name. One explanation is based on a false etymology associated with the word virgo, Latin for "maiden." This arose because in antiquity Virgil, who was notoriously modest, was nicknamed parthenias, the Greek word for maiden. Another possible explanation is that "Vergilius" was altered to "Virgilius" based on an analogy with the Latin virga, or "wand," because of the magical or prophetic powers attributed to Virgil in the Middle Ages. In Norman schools (following the French practice) the habit was to anglicize Latin names by dropping their Latin endings, hence "Virgil." In the United States in the nineteenth century, however, German immigrant classicists suggested modification to "Vergil," which was closer to his original name, because Virgil had always been known as Vergilius in German (and still is today).
See also
External links Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: - Virgil's Works
- Latin and English environment: Perseus/Tufts: P. Vergilius Maro (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/perscoll?.submit=Change&collection=Any&type=text&lang=Any&lookup=P.+Vergilius+Maro). Viewer allows switching between Latin and English and includes numerous extra notes and links. Not downloadable.
- Original Latin:
- English translations by John Dryden and J. B. Greenough:
- English translations by A. S. Kline: Dante and Others: Virgil: The Major Works (http://www.tonykline.free-online.co.uk/Virgilhome.htm)
- English translation by Th. C. Williams: The Aeneid (http://www.romansonline.com/sources/vrg/indx_vrg.asp?Kl=FFFFBA)
- French translations: Bibliotheca Classica Selecta: Bucoliques (http://bcs.fltr.ucl.ac.be/Virg/buc/bucgen.html,), Georgiques (http://bcs.fltr.ucl.ac.be/Virg/georg/georgi.html), L'Énéide louvaniste (http://bcs.fltr.ucl.ac.be/Virg/VirgIntro.html)
- Italian translation: Virgilio Eneide, Trad. di Annibal Caro (http://www.forumromanum.org/literature/aeneid_ital.html)
- Appendix Vergiliana
- Biography
- Commentary
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