Virgil’s undisputed works are three: the Eclogues, called, on account of their pastoral nature, the Bucolics; the Georgics; and the Æneid. The Eclogues are a series of ten idylls in imitation of the poems of the Greek poet Theocritus. The Greek word “idyll” means “little picture,” and since all Virgil’s idylls, except the fourth, and most of those of Theocritus, depict the life of herdsmen in the country, the word is generally applied to pastoral poems. Virgil’s Works. The Eclogues. Virgil’s Eclogues are little pictures of pastoral life, but contain many allusions to the poet’s own circumstances and to his friends and patrons, Pollio, Gallus, Varus, Mæcenas, and Augustus. Pastoral poems, written for the cultivated circle of an imperial court, are necessarily artificial, and to this rule the Eclogues are no exception. Yet the charm of their diction, the polish of their verse, the genuine love of nature and appreciation of rural life which they display, have given these poems a well-deserved place among the most famous productions of Roman literature. In the Eclogues Virgil is, even more than in his other poems, dependent on Greek originals. Not only scattered lines, but whole passages are almost literal translations from the idylls of Theocritus, and less noticeable adaptations from other poets also occur. Sometimes Virgil’s version is less beautiful than the original poem from which he borrows, and some of the most admired passages are not his own inventions; but even in the Eclogues, the earliest of his authentic works, written when he was about thirty years of age, amid the distress that accompanied his ejection from his little property, Virgil succeeds in making from his Greek originals new and great poems of genuinely Roman character. From first to last Virgil is a national poet.
The poem which stands first in the series, but which was not the first in order of composition, has the form of a dialogue between two herdsmen, Melibœus and Tityrus. In it the poet expresses his gratitude to Augustus, whom he calls a god. The poem begins:
Melibœus. Stretched in the shadow of the broad beech, thou
Rehearsest, Tityrus, on the slender pipe
Thy woodland music. We our fatherland
Are leaving, we must shun the fields we love:
While, Tityrus, thou, at ease amid the shade,
Bidd’st answering woods call Amaryllis “fair.”
Tityrus. O Melibœus! ’tis a god that made
For me this holiday: for a god I’ll aye