Vergil: Ecologa Prima
This is the first of my last four installments of this independent study. I decided to translate Vergil for my last work, because he’s my favorite Roman author. The Eclogues are a series of pastoral poems that are also a social commentary. I love Vergil’s style, and I’m excited to get started on this one, it’s unique because it’s in the form of a dialogue.
Meliboeus
Tityre, tu patulae recubans sub tegmine fagi
silvestrem tenui Musam meditaris avena;
nos patriae fines et dulcia linquimus arva.
nos patriam fugimus; tu, Tityre, lentus in umbra
formosam resonare doces Amaryllida silvas. 5
Tityrus
O Meliboee, deus nobis haec otia fecit.
namque erit ille mihi semper deus, illius aram
saepe tener nostris ab ovilibus imbuet agnus.
ille meas errare boves, ut cernis, et ipsum
ludere quae vellem calamo permisit agresti. 10
Meliboeus
Non equidem invideo, miror magis; undique totis
usque adeo turbatur agris. en ipse capellas
protenus aeger ago; hanc etiam vix, Tityre, duco.
hic inter densas corylos modo namque gemellos,
spem gregis, a, silice in nuda conixa reliquit. 15
saepe malum hoc nobis, si mens non laeva fuisset,
de caelo tactas memini praedicere quercus.
sed tamen iste deus qui sit da, Tityre,nobis.
My translation:
Meliboeus
Tityrus, you, lying beneath the shade of the beech tree,
play again and again a delicate woodland song on your panpipe;
We forsake the borders of the fatherland and the sweet earth.
We flee the fatherland; you, Tityrus, sluggish in the shade
sing so that the beautiul woods resound with Amaryllida.
Tityrus
O Meliboeus, our god made these leisures.
In fact that god will always have been mine, a tender
lamb from our sheepfold often wets his altar.
He allows for my cows to wander, as you can see, and allows himself
who may want to play on the rustic panpipe.
Meliboeus
I do not envy, rather, I marvel; I approach
and all the time the whole countryside is disturbed on all sides.
Lo! Ill in myself, I drive on my goats; and I lead on these goats with difficulty, Tityrus.
Here among the dense hazel trees, the poor thing bore twins,
the hope of my flock, alas, she left them there on the bare stone.
Often I have remembered that this evil was prophesized to me
by the oak struck by the sky, if my mind had not been dulled.
But however, Tityrus, tell me who this god of yours is.
