Virgil - The Eclogues

The translator wishes to record his thanks: to Kenneth McLeish and Wendell Clausen for encouragement, criticism and guidance, literary and scholarly; to Helen Lee and Patricia Huskinson for patient listening and many decisions; to Frederic Raphael and Theodore Redpath for valuable suggestions; to the Delegates of the Clarendon Press for permission to reprint the Latin text of the Eclogues established in 1969 by Sir Roger Mynors, departures from which (including punctuation) are noted at Eclogues II.7, III.79 and 102, X. 5, 71 and 72; to the Editor of Thames Poetry for permission to reprint the translations of Eclogues II and X; and finally to Francis Cairns for his kindness in undertaking publication of the first edition.

He has consulted various commentaries, notably Servius, La Cerda, Ruaeus, Martyn, Conington, Page, Coleman and Williams; in addition he has had the advantage of Wendell Clausens typescript notes to Eclogues I, II, VII, VIII and IX.

He has also consulted the translations of B. H. Kennedy, Royds, Mackail, Fairclough, Valry, Rieu, Day Lewis, Putnam, Berg, Sisson, Boyle and Alpers. Identical phrase does not necessarily imply indebtedness: for instance, though the rendering of Eclogue X.567 was adapted from Rieu, that of X.478 was not; translators often hit on the same form of words independently.

For this second edition the introduction has been much enlarged, each Eclogue given an introductory note, and the translation and notes revised. The translator is deeply indebted to the scholarship of Wendell Clausen (once again) and of Patrick Wilkinson, who read the first edition and the first draft of the additional material with great care and suggested many improvements. He again owes special thanks for shrewd criticism to Helen Lee and to Patricia Huskinson, who also did the typing. The main revisions to the translation occur at the following places: Eclogue I.34, 679, 77; II.69; III.14, 52, 74; IV.50; VII. 32; VIII.979; IX 32, 667.

Not another translation of the Eclogues? the knowledgeable reader may protest, remembering that there have already been at least seven published in English since 1949. True, but of these seven only one that of A. J. Boyle (1976) has attempted to reproduce as closely as possible in English verse what Virgils Latin actually says. Boyles success is remarkable and sets a new standard for translators of Latin poetry, but some may feel that his versification, based as it is on a five or six stress line of eleven to fifteen syllables, despite its similarity in syllabic variation to the Virgilian hexameter of thirteen to seventeen syllables, is nevertheless not regular enough; for every Virgilian line, as the name hexameter implies, contains precisely six metrical stresses, and not five or six. In other words, Virgils versification is strict, not free, and a modern translator may well decide that an important part of his task, despite prevailing fashion in contemporary poetry, is to reproduce that regularity in his English version. This the present translator has attempted to do, choosing as his medium the English Alexandrine.

The critic will of course object that Virgils line is dactylic, whereas the Alexandrine is iambic, and that by adopting the iambic rhythm the translator plays false to his original. To this objection the following answer can be made: first, that in English poetry blank verse (iambic rhythm) is the commonest medium, just as the dactylic hexameter is in Latin; secondly, that in practice the English dactylic hexameter offers more syllables than are normally needed to render its Latin equivalent, whereas the blank verse line contains too few. These considerations point to the Alexandrine, or twelve syllable iambic line, as the natural representative in English of the Latin hexameter, provided that a feminine ending and certain substitutions be occasionally allowed in order to increase the number of syllables available, and conversely that now and then a trochaic line be admissible.

So much for metre; now diction. To the best of our guessing Virgils Latin in the Eclogues, particularly in the non-dialogue ones, is quite often far removed from ordinary Latin speech. This characteristic must be represented in a translation, if it is to be faithful and not self-indulgent or trendy, however vividly so. Occasionally Virgil uses an archaism. The clearest example is